I just don't know what to do anymore...

[kitty613]

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Sorry to annoy you all with these threads, but I really have no idea what I am going to do anymore. Please give me some guidance and support. I really don't know where to turn.

Here it is: (Sorry it is so long, but please bear with me).

• Got laid off from job as reading school teacher in Jun 09(collecting unemployment) There are literally no teaching prospects around here right now. 😕I have a Bacholers and Master's already.
• Realized that I should follow my dream to be a vet and change careers. (Yay!)🙂
• Since that time, I've been take prerequisites and trying to get more animal exp(only have a little over 50 hours) Would love to get vet experience but NYS sucks when it comes to letting non-lincensed folk work in clinics. So, what do I do? Shadow for like 3 hours a week? Work as a receptionist?*sigh*
• Did I mention that I am 32?
• Did I mention that my mom is terminally ill and they just found another mass in her lungs?🙁
• Did I mention that I have a 3.9 overall GPA with all of my schooling combined with a GRE score of 700?
• Am aftraid that when I finish my prerequsities and apply to vet school next year (with less vet and animal exp than I want) that I won't get accepted and then what? My unemployment will have run out and I have no job prospects.I have a family I need to help support? What do I do? Twiddle my thumbs and wait around for the next cycle? 🙄
• Did I mention my mother is terminally ill?
• I thought about going to school as a vet tech and taking prerequsities as well. At least I would have a job (getting paid next to nothing) but I would get experience. Maybe 5 years from now I could apply to vet school?
• It's just such a risk. Don't know what to do anymore.

Please help me...

 

[nyanko]

Retake the GRE.

edit: sorry about your mom

 

[Tobysgirl81]

First, take a deep breath. Life is full of scary, complicated, overwhelming situations. The best advice I ever got was "When is doubt, just take the next small step".

First off, 32 is not old. It is not too late for a second career or for you to decide you want to do somethind different with your life. I'm 29 and just started my first year. I have several good friends in school who are in their late 20s and early 30s and we're all doing just fine - in some cases better because we don't have all the craziness of being 21 and 22 anymore 😉

Secondly, your mother wants you to be happy regardless of what's going on with her life. This is absolutely a difficult, overwhelming, horrible time in your life and I'm so sorry you have to deal with it. Knowing that someone you love is dying is just...without sounding too trite, awful. Its just heart rending. But remember, your mom has been on this earth trying to take care of you to the best of her ability for the last 32 years of YOUR life. She doesn't want you to stop taking care of yourself or to put your life on hold once she passes on. She does want you to be happy and make the most of your life to YOUR abilities.

I can't tell you exactly what to do because I don't know your specific situation. I CAN however tell you that your first priority is to find work. Apply to McDonald's if you have to. I have a good friend who has two Master's and is working at a gas station. She hates it, but its money in the bank and food on the table. Sometimes we just have to do what we hate in order to survive. It sounds like this might be one of those times for you.
I suggest retaking the GRE - preferably after doing some test prep either using books or with a class - and applying to at least your in state this time around. However, make sure you're also working so that if you DON'T get in you won't have to worry about what to do next.

I am a licensed Vet Tech and while I strongly recommend Tech school to anyone who WANTS to go that route, if you're not interested in being a tech you probably shouldn't waste your time at this point. Its more money, more time, and you're still in the same situation you were to start with. There are no gaurantees that with a Tech license you will get into vet school, so its kind of a side route for those of us with less than perfect grades to start with 😉

Everything will be alright. It might not be right now, and it might not be in the immediate future, but the wonderful thing about life is that it is always changing. Take it one day, one step at a time and remember that you are always stronger than you think you are. You can and will make it through all this and come out just fine on the other side!

 

[PendantWorld]

I understand completely about NYS being awful for getting work experience. It took me months and months of volunteering and shadowing before I was hired somewhere. If you want to PM me with where you are in NY, I *might* know some places in the area that take shadows. If not, good luck with your search! Call *every* clinic in your area, even if its not as close as you like. I ended up finding a volunteer position at a clinic that wasn't super far away, and they ended up hiring me a few months later.

 

[BlacKAT33]

i got all of my clinical vet experience only by shadowing/volunteering, a couple hrs a week adds up! If you can do 5 hrs one day a week that is even better

Also, if you need more time to get control of your life then do that first. there are people in vet school who are 40. if you need a couple yrs to get a decent income, accumulate more hrs, and spend time with your mom i would take that. You also need to retake the GRE and spend more time studying, maybe even sign up for a class? Just don't rush things since you have so much on your plate right now.

Hope it works out 🙂

 

[that redhead]

You're looking too much at the big picture instead of focusing on the puzzle pieces. I know you have a lot on your plate right now and that everything seems very overwhelming but, as mentioned above, you need to step back and take a deep breath. The most important thing right now, depsite your enthusiasm for starting over and aiming for vet med, is to get your life in order. Get yourself a job, even if it means not teaching or something you don't want to do necessarily. It would be most productive to get a job working with animals but that won't always pay the bills and that is what's most important right now. If anything, you can include a reason for low animal/vet hours in your explanation statement.

I don't think anyone on here is going to give you the advice to forget your real life and throw yourself blindly at vet med. 32 is definitely not too old to get into a new career (many people on the forum are older than that) and you really can't move forward until you've got a way to support yourself.

 

[LMMS]

Kitty - First, my sympathies on everything. Welcome to my world circa 2004... Really, I'm not kidding... I know exactly what you're going through - the light at the end of the tunnel is nothing but the oncoming train... The only fundamentally different things are that that, thankfully, my mother was only seriously ill rather than terminally (again, my sympathies) and my GPA/GREs were no where near that high.

My best advice is to prioritize what's most important. Having seen your posts, this is my best guess:

(1) Mom
(2) Work - what to do with the rest of your life
(3) Getting vet/animal experience

As I said in your other thread, I think it's best for your psyche to take the time to be with your mother given that you don't know how much time you'll have. Also, as you need to keep some kind of normalcy in life, finding a shelter or other place to volunteer would probably be good for you.

Now, if you don't get in, well, you move on. Given that you're considering applying in the next cycle you won't know your status for over a year. So, try to take the time to find what makes you happy. Perhaps, after you know the status of your mother, etc..., find a job you'll be happy enough to hang on to if you don't get accepted. That way, you'll have some stability while you figure out your next move.

I hope that helps you some.

 

[VeganSoprano]

You've gotten some great advice so far. I would add that a receptionist gig at an animal hospital would actually be a pretty good thing. It counts as vet experience, you'll learn about how a veterinary practice works as a business (great if you think you might want to open your own practice one day), you will gain a lot of client interaction experience, and you will still learn something about medicine. An advantage over teaching is that you will get to leave your work behind at the end of the day. Your time off will really be yours.

This next bit is just my own subjective opinion based on my experience and it might be completely different for you, but I'm going to say it anyway: do *not* take a kennel attendant job just to get your foot in the door of an animal hospital. A kennel job means lots of time spent alone doing janitorial work. With everything you've been through lately, the solitude and abundance of mindless grunt work could be completely soul-sucking and depressing. There's just too much time to think. Now, this is a matter of individual wiring and you might be completely fine with it. But please think about this. A job that is equally heavy on menial work is often much more bearable if there are other people around. A fast food gig won't be fun but it might actually be easier to keep your sanity there than in a kennel.

Another thing to consider is whether there is a zoo or humane society in your area that has an education division. These jobs won't be as readily available as clinic receptionist jobs but the pay would be better and it would make good use of elements of both your previous and next career.

Academically, you will need to raise your GRE score. The good news is that you have plenty of time to practice and prepare yourself to get a better score. With your GPA, you don't have to ace the GRE but you will need to be fairly close to 1000 in order to be competitive.

Honestly, one of the best things you can do for your mom is move forward with your own life. Probably one of the biggest things on your mom's mind is whether you and your family will be okay when she's gone. Spending time with your mom needs to be the top priority, of course, but don't feel guilty about doing your own things too. It's necessary for you and it will be good for your mom as well.

 

[turnbackhelly]

You've gotten some great advice so far. I would add that a receptionist gig at an animal hospital would actually be a pretty good thing. It counts as vet experience, you'll learn about how a veterinary practice works as a business (great if you think you might want to open your own practice one day), you will gain a lot of client interaction experience, and you will still learn something about medicine.

I have to second this. I worked for 3 years as a receptionist at a referral and emergency hospital, and that was really the bulk of my vet experience (~1800 hrs). I had a small collection of other more clinical vet experiences, but they ranged from about 20-100 hours each, so really nothing substantial in and of itself. I thought I would be at a disadvantage compared to classmates who had more hands on experience, but I've been pleasantly surprised (sometimes shocked, even) at how much I learned as a receptionist without realizing it at the time - and I made a LOT more money than any of the technicians or tech assistants. As VeganSoprano said, you really get a unique and incredibly useful view of veterinary medicine from that vantage point - how to interact with clients that are sad or angry, difficult discussions about money, etc. I definitely wouldn't count out a receptionist job at a veterinary hospital if you can find one near you. It's especially helpful if you can find a practice with electronic medical records (so you can browse them on days when it's slow), especially if that practice also has a vet(s) that is/are willing to answer your questions about vet med when time permits. For example, on slower days I spent my free time at work reading the medical records of in-house patients (instead of a trashy magazine), and then I would ask some of the vets I worked with questions about those cases if they had time ("why did you do xyz diagnostic and what does it tell you?", questions about terms I wasn't familiar with, etc). It sounds silly, but I really learned a ton this way. If the vets you work with know your goal is to go to vet school, I'm sure many would be willing to teach you little bits here and there when they have the time (some of the vets I worked with would make a point of showing me interesting radiographs, cytology slides, etc. - again, time permitting). Also, the bigger and busier the hospital the better, because you'll get to see a wider variety of patients and people.

I interviewed at 3 schools last cycle, and at every school at least one of my interviewers made a comment that they liked that my vet experience was "different and interesting." They did also ask questions to make sure I was more involved than just answering the phone and filing charts (ex: "Tell us about some interesting cases you got to see while working as a receptionist"), but overall I got the feeling that my experience as a receptionist was actually a huge asset to my application when I had honestly thought it would hurt me. If you can find a vet receptionist job near you go for it, you may just get the best of both worlds - hours that count as vet experience, AND more money than you'd make at some other jobs.

Good luck to you, and feel free to PM with any questions. Very sorry to hear about your mother!

 

[lareinesoleil]

I have to second this. I worked for 3 years as a receptionist at a referral and emergency hospital, and that was really the bulk of my vet experience (~1800 hrs). I had a small collection of other more clinical vet experiences, but they ranged from about 20-100 hours each, so really nothing substantial in and of itself. I thought I would be at a disadvantage compared to classmates who had more hands on experience, but I've been pleasantly surprised (sometimes shocked, even) at how much I learned as a receptionist without realizing it at the time - and I made a LOT more money than any of the technicians or tech assistants. As VeganSoprano said, you really get a unique and incredibly useful view of veterinary medicine from that vantage point - how to interact with clients that are sad or angry, difficult discussions about money, etc. I definitely wouldn't count out a receptionist job at a veterinary hospital if you can find one near you. It's especially helpful if you can find a practice with electronic medical records (so you can browse them on days when it's slow), especially if that practice also has a vet(s) that is/are willing to answer your questions about vet med when time permits. For example, on slower days I spent my free time at work reading the medical records of in-house patients (instead of a trashy magazine), and then I would ask some of the vets I worked with questions about those cases if they had time ("why did you do xyz diagnostic and what does it tell you?", questions about terms I wasn't familiar with, etc). It sounds silly, but I really learned a ton this way. If the vets you work with know your goal is to go to vet school, I'm sure many would be willing to teach you little bits here and there when they have the time (some of the vets I worked with would make a point of showing me interesting radiographs, cytology slides, etc. - again, time permitting). Also, the bigger and busier the hospital the better, because you'll get to see a wider variety of patients and people.

I interviewed at 3 schools last cycle, and at every school at least one of my interviewers made a comment that they liked that my vet experience was "different and interesting." They did also ask questions to make sure I was more involved than just answering the phone and filing charts (ex: "Tell us about some interesting cases you got to see while working as a receptionist"), but overall I got the feeling that my experience as a receptionist was actually a huge asset to my application when I had honestly thought it would hurt me. If you can find a vet receptionist job near you go for it, you may just get the best of both worlds - hours that count as vet experience, AND more money than you'd make at some other jobs.

Good luck to you, and feel free to PM with any questions. Very sorry to hear about your mother!

Agreed. I learned so so much being a receptionist - including valuable skills about client relations. And you learn a lot by answering questions over the phone and typing up charts.