Insight for a person who is trying to get out of debt and off disability to pursue their dreams

[Howlingblaster]

I am 30 years old with some college credits and horse animal care under my belt. I have been on disability since 2013 and I have spent over a year total in the hospital. I have about fifteen grand in debt from a private college and have been paying that off month to month while I have been out of college. I have the option of having my loans medically discharged over the course of the next 5 years but I am more interested in getting off of disability instead. I plan to take community college classes online due to covid in the spring, a summer mini semester on campus and then one or two fall semesters on campus in order to transfer into an associate degree program at a state college two hours away. The reason why is because I would like to knock out my prerequisite courses and my science lab courses in order to be competitive and to save money before deciding to take out any more federal loans at the community college. After I complete the associate degree program at the state college I would like to matriculate into their bachelors degree program and then I would like to complete the masters degree of science in the same department and then I will consider applying for the DVM with enough experience.
The reason I decided to come on here after a year of not posting to SDN is because I have been struggling with a medical crisis and the implications covid has had on my educational experience. I have not attended a formal college since 2015 and I have been working and I completed a sterile processing course online and read many books since my break in education. I have been applying to community college this week and talking to a disability social worker in order to figure out what my plans ought to be. Over the past year I have noticed quite an improvement in my mental and cognitive health. I didn't think that I would have improved this much and I am basically trying to decide if I should throw in the towel and discharge my loans for good like my mom suggested or if I should shoot for the stars. I am uninterested in becoming married or having children, I would like to spend my 30's focusing on my career and money isn't necessarily a problem. I just feel that I will have a tough time explaining to DVM admissions in the future that I have had all these gaps and that my gpa dropped from a 3.5 to a 2.2 due to the medications I was on after one semester because I had to take almost all F's at a private college due to coming down with the flu on top of already being on disability. I just want to know if anybody here would think it would be wise if I still attempted to complete a bachelors degree and to attempt to get into veterinary school at this point in time. I refuse to settle for a lower tier Caribbean school and I have no problem going out and doing more shadowing hours. The other option would be discharging my loans and foregoing college all together except for a certificate from a community college online that I could get in one semester with mediocre grades and then going out to go work on a farm for peanuts with no debt. My mother basically said I could do this instead of going back to college for the sciences and that she would buy me a small house in the country where I could work on a poultry farm but I want to believe that someone on here would think that completing veterinary college and working in poultry medicine would be worth it.
That's another thing, I am specifically interested in poultry medicine and I keep seeing posts on here about the college I am interested in attending for undergrad. I'm not sure how hard it is to find a job in the field and I don't have much experience in it considering I have more experience with horses than poultry. I went through a lot in my 20's compared to the average person and I feel that my experiences have made me more resilient and that I had to work very hard to secure a roof over my head and to get to the point I am at even now.

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[TheGirlWithTheFernTattoo]

I am 30 years old with some college credits and horse animal care under my belt. I have been on disability since 2013 and I have spent over a year total in the hospital. I have about fifteen grand in debt from a private college and have been paying that off month to month while I have been out of college. I have the option of having my loans medically discharged over the course of the next 5 years but I am more interested in getting off of disability instead. I plan to take community college classes online due to covid in the spring, a summer mini semester on campus and then one or two fall semesters on campus in order to transfer into an associate degree program at a state college two hours away. The reason why is because I would like to knock out my prerequisite courses and my science lab courses in order to be competitive and to save money before deciding to take out any more federal loans at the community college. After I complete the associate degree program at the state college I would like to matriculate into their bachelors degree program and then I would like to complete the masters degree of science in the same department and then I will consider applying for the DVM with enough experience.
The reason I decided to come on here after a year of not posting to SDN is because I have been struggling with a medical crisis and the implications covid has had on my educational experience. I have not attended a formal college since 2015 and I have been working and I completed a sterile processing course online and read many books since my break in education. I have been applying to community college this week and talking to a disability social worker in order to figure out what my plans ought to be. Over the past year I have noticed quite an improvement in my mental and cognitive health. I didn't think that I would have improved this much and I am basically trying to decide if I should throw in the towel and discharge my loans for good like my mom suggested or if I should shoot for the stars. I am uninterested in becoming married or having children, I would like to spend my 30's focusing on my career and money isn't necessarily a problem. I just feel that I will have a tough time explaining to DVM admissions in the future that I have had all these gaps and that my gpa dropped from a 3.5 to a 2.2 due to the medications I was on after one semester because I had to take almost all F's at a private college due to coming down with the flu on top of already being on disability. I just want to know if anybody here would think it would be wise if I still attempted to complete a bachelors degree and to attempt to get into veterinary school at this point in time. I refuse to settle for a lower tier Caribbean school and I have no problem going out and doing more shadowing hours. The other option would be discharging my loans and foregoing college all together except for a certificate from a community college online that I could get in one semester with mediocre grades and then going out to go work on a farm for peanuts with no debt. My mother basically said I could do this instead of going back to college for the sciences and that she would buy me a small house in the country where I could work on a poultry farm but I want to believe that someone on here would think that completing veterinary college and working in poultry medicine would be worth it.
That's another thing, I am specifically interested in poultry medicine and I keep seeing posts on here about the college I am interested in attending for undergrad. I'm not sure how hard it is to find a job in the field and I don't have much experience in it considering I have more experience with horses than poultry. I went through a lot in my 20's compared to the average person and I feel that my experiences have made me more resilient and that I had to work very hard to secure a roof over my head and to get to the point I am at even now.

This is going to be a bit harsh, but what you said was offensive to those veterinarians graduating from Caribbean schools.

If this is your attitude towards vet school, it makes me question your reasons behind wanting to go. This is not like human medicine, the Caribbean grads from accredited schools are just as good of vets as those from schools in North America. In fact, me at one of those "higher tier" North American schools is taught by an SGU grad and she is one of the best vets I've met in my life. And with minimal vet experience and lower GPA, the Caribbean is an option that may be more available to you to become a vet.

I would recommend getting some veterinary experience ASAP. Horse care is good, but unless that was specifically horse vet shadowing, you NEED veterinary experience. Most applicants, particularly those at the North American schools, have expansive (talking 1000+ hours) experience. If you have a lower GPA, the rest of your application is going to need to be very strong to balance that out.

I commend you for the work you've done, and think working towards your degree seems like a good idea (if you really want to; though that offer to be debt free sounds really really nice). I would probably try and focus on a degree that would give you job prospects that interest you other than vetmed, in case that falls through down the line. However, you need experience because you might find out that you actually hate vetmed. And you would be best to drop the attitude towards Caribbean schools, since you will almost guaranteed be working with those grads in your veterinary career.

 

[SkiOtter]

Yep. Caribbean grads from AVMA accredited schools STILL have to pass the same boards exams and ALSO are doing all of their clinical rotations at one of the US schools. They are getting the same education as any US vet school, which is why they are even allowed to be AVMA accredited.

 

[thankdog]

I am 30 years old with some college credits and horse animal care under my belt. I have been on disability since 2013 and I have spent over a year total in the hospital. I have about fifteen grand in debt from a private college and have been paying that off month to month while I have been out of college. I have the option of having my loans medically discharged over the course of the next 5 years but I am more interested in getting off of disability instead. I plan to take community college classes online due to covid in the spring, a summer mini semester on campus and then one or two fall semesters on campus in order to transfer into an associate degree program at a state college two hours away. The reason why is because I would like to knock out my prerequisite courses and my science lab courses in order to be competitive and to save money before deciding to take out any more federal loans at the community college. After I complete the associate degree program at the state college I would like to matriculate into their bachelors degree program and then I would like to complete the masters degree of science in the same department and then I will consider applying for the DVM with enough experience.
The reason I decided to come on here after a year of not posting to SDN is because I have been struggling with a medical crisis and the implications covid has had on my educational experience. I have not attended a formal college since 2015 and I have been working and I completed a sterile processing course online and read many books since my break in education. I have been applying to community college this week and talking to a disability social worker in order to figure out what my plans ought to be. Over the past year I have noticed quite an improvement in my mental and cognitive health. I didn't think that I would have improved this much and I am basically trying to decide if I should throw in the towel and discharge my loans for good like my mom suggested or if I should shoot for the stars. I am uninterested in becoming married or having children, I would like to spend my 30's focusing on my career and money isn't necessarily a problem. I just feel that I will have a tough time explaining to DVM admissions in the future that I have had all these gaps and that my gpa dropped from a 3.5 to a 2.2 due to the medications I was on after one semester because I had to take almost all F's at a private college due to coming down with the flu on top of already being on disability. I just want to know if anybody here would think it would be wise if I still attempted to complete a bachelors degree and to attempt to get into veterinary school at this point in time. I refuse to settle for a lower tier Caribbean school and I have no problem going out and doing more shadowing hours. The other option would be discharging my loans and foregoing college all together except for a certificate from a community college online that I could get in one semester with mediocre grades and then going out to go work on a farm for peanuts with no debt. My mother basically said I could do this instead of going back to college for the sciences and that she would buy me a small house in the country where I could work on a poultry farm but I want to believe that someone on here would think that completing veterinary college and working in poultry medicine would be worth it.
That's another thing, I am specifically interested in poultry medicine and I keep seeing posts on here about the college I am interested in attending for undergrad. I'm not sure how hard it is to find a job in the field and I don't have much experience in it considering I have more experience with horses than poultry. I went through a lot in my 20's compared to the average person and I feel that my experiences have made me more resilient and that I had to work very hard to secure a roof over my head and to get to the point I am at even now.

I can only speak from my own experiences, but I would recommend taking it one day at a time and not making any big decisions yet. I would encourage you to take a prerequisite or two at your community college (heck, take as many as you can there because it’s going to save you a lot of money). See how you do and if you actually enjoy the sciences. Also, like the previous posters said, definitely get some vet experience hours. It is one thing to think you know what it’s like to work in vet med, but it is another thing entirely to experience it - make sure you get exposed to the good, the bad, and the ugly. This experience might make you reconsider or it might make you even more sure that this is the path you want to choose for yourself.

I doubt you meant any offense about the Caribbean schools, but please know that some of the smartest, most capable vets I know actually attended them. I would advise you to let go of preconceived notions at this point, because you’re at the starting line of a long road and you can’t predict the obstacles and opportunities that will arise down the line.

Best of luck on your journey!

 

[Crayola227]

This is a truly awful idea for so many reasons.

Think twice before going for permanent discharge for your student loans. If you do, you will never be eligible for any federal student loans in the future. I'm not sure if you can reinstate the loans and all the interest in the future if you change your mind and want to go back to school. Otoh, with income based repayment depending on your situation you may not have to make payments on them. I know someone on SSI who doesn't pay on them because of this. - they grow but they don't pay and they have the option of going back to school in the future. Either way you go has implications for your credit and getting future loans. It's a complicated decision and not straightforward.

Becoming a DVM poses a huge number of financial challenges even for anyone who at the time of pursuit, has no reason to question their able-bodiedness, or fear that a disability will return or worsen in the future. Is your disability really such that you're sure you have the next however many years to make this worth it all?

I know people who went to medical school and ended up on SSI before getting a license to practice.

We sell people some fantasy of being disabled and not letting anything hold you back from a "regular" life or whatever - but the reality for most people, is that you have to get really realistic about what you can afford to do and what risks the future holds.

I don't think most people can "have it all" depending on what is working against them, and frankly it seems like a lot of able-bodied women I know who bought into that are going down the difficult pathway of fertility treatment and wondering if they're ever going to get to have a baby at all.

Having a disability and starting a family in your 30s is really, really hard, even when you don't have the demands of career.

I would tell someone that if family is more important than career, to focus on family.

 

[bird.nerd]

I am 30 years old with some college credits and horse animal care under my belt. I have been on disability since 2013 and I have spent over a year total in the hospital. I have about fifteen grand in debt from a private college and have been paying that off month to month while I have been out of college. I have the option of having my loans medically discharged over the course of the next 5 years but I am more interested in getting off of disability instead. I plan to take community college classes online due to covid in the spring, a summer mini semester on campus and then one or two fall semesters on campus in order to transfer into an associate degree program at a state college two hours away. The reason why is because I would like to knock out my prerequisite courses and my science lab courses in order to be competitive and to save money before deciding to take out any more federal loans at the community college. After I complete the associate degree program at the state college I would like to matriculate into their bachelors degree program and then I would like to complete the masters degree of science in the same department and then I will consider applying for the DVM with enough experience.
The reason I decided to come on here after a year of not posting to SDN is because I have been struggling with a medical crisis and the implications covid has had on my educational experience. I have not attended a formal college since 2015 and I have been working and I completed a sterile processing course online and read many books since my break in education. I have been applying to community college this week and talking to a disability social worker in order to figure out what my plans ought to be. Over the past year I have noticed quite an improvement in my mental and cognitive health. I didn't think that I would have improved this much and I am basically trying to decide if I should throw in the towel and discharge my loans for good like my mom suggested or if I should shoot for the stars. I am uninterested in becoming married or having children, I would like to spend my 30's focusing on my career and money isn't necessarily a problem. I just feel that I will have a tough time explaining to DVM admissions in the future that I have had all these gaps and that my gpa dropped from a 3.5 to a 2.2 due to the medications I was on after one semester because I had to take almost all F's at a private college due to coming down with the flu on top of already being on disability. I just want to know if anybody here would think it would be wise if I still attempted to complete a bachelors degree and to attempt to get into veterinary school at this point in time. I refuse to settle for a lower tier Caribbean school and I have no problem going out and doing more shadowing hours. The other option would be discharging my loans and foregoing college all together except for a certificate from a community college online that I could get in one semester with mediocre grades and then going out to go work on a farm for peanuts with no debt. My mother basically said I could do this instead of going back to college for the sciences and that she would buy me a small house in the country where I could work on a poultry farm but I want to believe that someone on here would think that completing veterinary college and working in poultry medicine would be worth it.
That's another thing, I am specifically interested in poultry medicine and I keep seeing posts on here about the college I am interested in attending for undergrad. I'm not sure how hard it is to find a job in the field and I don't have much experience in it considering I have more experience with horses than poultry. I went through a lot in my 20's compared to the average person and I feel that my experiences have made me more resilient and that I had to work very hard to secure a roof over my head and to get to the point I am at even now.

Something that I feel like was not mentioned in previous posts is that financials ARE significant, especially if you are already in debt and if it has interest. Most veterinarians come out of school with upwards $200,000 in debt and that number is only increasing. Considering the fact that the average salary of a veterinarian is 73-90k (varies based on GP, specialty etc.), it is going to take a significant amount of time to pay off. A senior vet student at MSU who is doing clinic rotations at our hospital is half a million dollars in debt from tuition, housing, expenses etc. I personally would not be able to attend vet school if I didnt graduate debt free from undergrad AND if my partner didn’t have an established career because truthfully that amount of debt is crippling. While there are ways to have it forgiven, there is a lot of fine print that goes along with it. I really encourage you to look at your financial situation and see if this is truly what you will love doing for the rest of your life and if you are able to take on a significant amount of debt on top of the debt you already have.
I also echo what everyone else has said about Caribbean schools and that someone who graduated from Ross has been the most influential part of me learning about vet med/ continuing in this field.

 

[battie]

I would suggest two things for your case:
1) a pros/cons list that is *brutally honest* about your current situation and what possibilities may lie in the future
2) a realistic timeline of getting prerequisites done, having the appropriate experience hours, applying to school, and getting through school.

While a pros/cons list is too personal for me to comment on, I will say that you should expect a 6+ year process to get through everything to a quality that will give you the best application to put forth to schools and get through vet school. This includes the fact that veterinary medicine applications are simply becoming more competitive on the basis of number of applicants to the number of available seats alone, not to mention the fact that applications themselves are either maintaining or increasing in all parameters.

You can start by looking at all ~40-50 accredited schools through the AVMA COE. Elimination starts with removing the schools you cannot logistically go to. As an example, the Seoul veterinary medical school was recently granted accreditation, but they teach entirely in Korean. So (assuming you can't go to South Korea or speak Korean), you'd remove them from the list.

From there, you'd take a good, hard look at the requirements for the remaining 30-40 schools you could logistically attend. Do you think you could be a good enough applicant to apply to schools like Texas A&M, Georgia, Oregon, Louisiana, and others with fewer OOS seats that are reserved for the top 100-150 out of state applicants out of 600-1000? Or the schools that get 1500-2000 applicants (Colorado and Purdue come to mind)? While I won't hammer home the point about Caribbean schools any more than already has been, in cases where students have limited options, these schools should only be eliminated if 1) going to the islands is logistically difficult/impossible or 2) the debt is deemed to ridiculous (which would eliminated several schools state-side as well such as CSU). One island school is not accredited (St. Matthew's) so I would not recommend them just based on the increased work load of getting licensed in the US. Another school has had chronic issues with low 80% NAVLE pass rates or high attrition rates, which are both concerning to me if you do not feel you would be a strong veterinary student to begin with.

From here, you have your preliminary list of schools that you would base your prerequisites on. We are getting to the point in applications where you base your prerequisite list on your school list, not your school list on your prerequisite list. This saves you time and money in not focusing on classes you don't need to apply, and prevents you from wasting money on applying to schools that you don't meet minimum academic qualifications for.

Then you start your prerequisites, possibly a-la-carte at community college or a state college/university to save money. You keep the academic requirements/averages for your school list in mind. As an example, NC State requires a 3.4 GPA for their OOS applicants. If you want to apply there, you make sure that you maintain a 3.41 or higher to be able to apply. This applies to your entire school list.

While doing all this, you are also simultaneously gaining experience in veterinary medicine, animal husbandry/work, leadership, and/or other interests. A letter of recommendation from a veterinarian is required at almost every veterinary school (state-side at least). Getting experience in various different types of medicine is important. Being okay with being a GP veterinarian because that may be all that you can afford to do post-graduation depending on your location parameters, debt load, and general life situation. You mentioned you would be interested in poultry medicine. If you say so in your application, you better make sure you have the experience to back it up.

Then you have either a gap year due to rejection or not being called off the waitlist, or you have a minimum of 4 years of vet school. There is a saying that the average applicant takes a few application cycles to get into vet school. This is a vet med urban myth. According to the AAVMC, approximately 80% of applicants every year are first time applicants, and fewer than 5% have applied 3 or more times. The vast majority of first year veterinary students are first time applicants. Multiple applications are 1) expensive and 2) emotionally draining. I *highly recommend* that you treat your application cycle as a rejection until you have an acceptance in hand. Assume you're rejected so that you continue to improving your application. Too many 2nd or even 3rd time applicants wasted time their first application cycle assuming they would be accepted. When they weren't, they lost anywhere from 3-6 months of time where they could have been improving their application, which puts them behind in setting themselves up for success.

Overall, just touching on the actual application process, I advise you to prepare for the worst while hoping for the best. Best case scenario: get your prerequisites done in 2 years, successful first application cycle, 4 years of vet school, for a process of 6 years. Hiccups in this process can be overcome; but they can certainly lengthen the timeline.

 

[Awallace28]

One thing I wanted to add about poultry medicine is that it is a difficult field to get into. There are very few available jobs working directly in poultry houses (which is what it sounds like you want to do). Many poultry vets work for the government in research or food safety capacities. Almost every poultry vet also has a Master's in Avian Medicine which is a 1.5-2 year program after graduating vet school. I don't think it would be impossible for you to do, but it's just something else to keep in mind if you are dead-set on poultry. UGA is huge on poultry (seeing that GA is the biggest poultry producer in the country), so I would definitely recommend looking at the program here and other schools in the southeast. Good luck with everything!

 

[twelvetigers]

I'd be much more inclined to discount Caribbean schools because the islands would potentially be a difficult place to live with disabilities. That would, I think, be a reasonable reason to cross them off the list, rather than anything to do with the quality of education.

This would be a hard road for you if you choose to take it, so you would want to take all the steps to make sure it is 100%, no doubt, absolutely what you want and that nothing else could ever make you happy as a career. We tell that to everyone though - the little fuzzy-tailed 20-somethings that are choosing their path through undergrad and can still run on 2 hours of sleep and work two part time jobs during college - they get the same advice to pause and consider if this is the only path for them, because it is a hard one. For anyone. So, understandably, you would want to think extra hard about it.

 

[FijianVet]

Hi, so I totally agree with @TheGirlWithTheFernTattoo, I know your not trying to be offensive, but just remember that Veterinary students who graduate from Ross and SGU are still Veterinarians and regardless of where they went, they still have the AVMA accredited degree. @SkiOtter is correct that the Caribbean students do rotations in North America so their clinical experiences are the same as any other student. I attend Ontario Veterinary College, which considered to be one of the best Veterinary Medical Schools in the world, but that doesn't mean I will be a better Vet than someone who went to SGU or Ross. To be honest, I look forward to working with Veterinary Students who attended SGU or Ross. I worked very hard to get into OVC, but I know several other students who worked just as hard to get into SGU or Ross. I would disregard rank and focus more on the quality of the education rather than the stigmatism that exists toward Caribbean Schools. I agree with @thankdog and I have professors at my school who have attended SGU and Ross and they teach here or have specialized later on in their career. In 2020, Caribbean Schools have really improved and offer more opportunities for their students. I knew a Vet student at UGA who attended SGU and she was just as good as the UGA Vet students during clinical rotations.

I also agree with @twelvetigers, that perhaps it may be more difficult to attend Vet School in the Caribbean with a disability since medical services there may not be as advanced as the U.S. @Awallace28 mentioned that UGA is one of the best places for Poultry Medicine, which is true, and I worked there in the research area associated with poultry. If you are interested then you should try contacting the UGA Veterinary Medical school and explain your situation and they may be able to advise you as well.

Also, I think that it's important to mention that you don't need to be a Veterinarian to work in the Poultry industry, there are other options such as Masters in Public Health, or Phd degrees that allow you to work with Poultry especially in research, nutrition, etc.

@batsenecal mentioned about how competitive getting into Veterinary Medical School is and it's true that it is more competitive each year and as a recent applicant that was accepted, the process in applying can be difficult and expensive, so just make a list of places that may fit your interests and maybe look into your instate Veterinary Medical School (if you have one in your state). Just make sure you are 100% on following this path, and I would also try speaking with a Veterinarian, maybe a Poultry Vet just to make sure that you are aware and prepared.

What is your instate Veterinary Medical School? I would also look into your instate school since that may give you an idea about where you stand in terms of admissions and speak with them directly if possible. Good Luck.

-AK

 

[allygator13]

I am an SGU graduate, so take my response with a grain of salt I guess
NC State is also big for poultry.