Need advice: Take full time job now or remain a full time student?

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just a couple things to think about as well:

- don't forget you will be paying taxes on your income

- your loans may come up for repayment sooner if you aren't full time student.

I worked FT throughtout college, so can' really advise.
 
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Another thing to consider: vet schools aren't necessarily looking for people with excellent clinical skills. It doesn't matter much if you're able to intubate animals and are great at restraint and vaccinating. What matters is that you have good, varied experience. I also don't think that paid experience matters more than volunteering.

I would say that, if you have a ton of small animal veterinary experience otherwise - especially if it's mostly experience from volunteering at this or other shelters, you should take the lab animal job. It'll make you more well rounded as an applicant. If, on the other hand, you have lots of research or lab animal experience and have spent barely any time at shelters or small animal clinics, then the shelter job might be a good idea.

What is your experience like up to this point? (I know you say you don't have much hands on clinical experience, but that doesn't necessarily mean you don't have much small animal vet experience, you know?)
 
I get paid ~$600 a month to work at my clinic (about 25 hours a week) and I only get paid once a month... and I really hated working there for like, the first nine months. I realize now that it's been a great experience for me - even the part where I hated it - because now I know a bit more about how to handle hating something that you HAVE to do. I feel that might come in handy someday. ;)

I think the shelter thing sounds like an awesome opportunity, but they are asking a LOT of you. Don't accept something with pay that you absolutely can't live on - none of us want you to be a hobo. But, if you can make it work...

What are the chances of getting some substantial volunteer hours at a SA or mixed practice during the next few months?

In the end, it's 100% your choice, of course.
 
Something else to consider with pay at the shelter job: I worked at a shelter for awhile for $12/hr, then switched to another job that paid $15.75. I actually ended up with almost equal paychecks because I got SOOO much overtime at the shelter. If the shelter lets you do a lot of overtime (and if you're up for working really long hours and having no life :p), the pay might not be so bad.
 
So while I haven't had much "lab animal" experience, I have a lot of "lab animal-related research" experience. I also haven't had any mixed animal /exotics experience which is upsetting as I think if I end up in a clinical practice I would like to do mixed animal; the shelter has a bunch of "exotic" small animals (rabbits, ferrets, birds, iguanas, etc), which would give me a chance to work with them.

I don't know if it is this way at all schools, but here mixed animal = domestic livestock/pets, which is different than zoo med, or small animal med + exotics.

I don't know how other schools break down experience, I just know the desire here is for at least 100 hours in at least three fields (with a min of 400 hours total) for vet experience. Fields here are: large animal, equine, mixed animal, clinician scientist (research), epidemiology/public health, pathology, lab animal, small animal (+exotics) and zoo animal.

It would be hard for me to alter course at the end...but I would have really had to figure out loans and junk too.

Before you count on overtime, make absolutly certain you know the overtime policy in detail. Never count on overtime unless a minimum is part of your contract, just like you should never count on bonuses.

Also, make sure you wll not experience compassion fatique. One caution I was told recently; if you think you may want to go into lab animal med, make sure any organizaiton your name is associated with profesionally is squeeky clean in the animal rights aspect (or it could come back to bite you) so overall that might be another caveat; know the reputation and such and make sure you are fully on board with it, since it will be part of your employment history and part of the mission you support as an employee.
 
If you're getting time and a half for overtime, that means you're making $18/hour for every hour of overtime. So if you work a ton, it adds up. Besides not having a life though, it's very wearing and draining to work so much. You can get burned out quickly, so don't overdo it.

Also, I found shelter work to be no more rewarding than the lab animal stuff, but YMMV. When I worked in the lab, I was helping make sure the animals who give SO much to us humans had as comfortable, clean, and happy a life as they could. I was also assisting with really important research that would help a lot of people. For the most part, the PI's cared about their animals and wanted to see that they were happy and healthy. Yes, animals were euthanized, but at least you knew that would happen eventually coming into it and you knew that any animals sacrificed were for a really good cause. Staff members were generally well trained and very concerned with the welfare of the animals they worked with.

When I worked in the shelter, I dealt with ungrateful people every day - both other staff members and members of the public coming in to surrender/look at animals or coming in to have their animals spayed or neutered. Also, many of the staff members and volunteers at the shelter just "loved animals", but weren't necessarily super knowledgeable about them and that can lead to problems. When you have a staff member who knows just a little about something, you end up with people who constantly try to overstep or contradict the authority of the veterinary staff or their managers. And that's not even counting the stress of seeing animals euthanized who were sweet but too old/sick/food aggressive/etc to be adopted.

I think with shelter work, it's important to make sure you're really ready for the potential for long hours, little pay, and for things to end up much more stressful than you thought they would. I was often pretty stressed and depressed when I worked in the animal shelter. I was also often really happy and thought the job was very rewarding, but I just wanted to point out that it could be a lot less of the whole rewarding puppies and rainbows thing than you think going in. If I were you, I'd see about talking to some staff members about what the working conditions are REALLY like. I think sheltering is definitely a situation where good management/leadership will make or break you as far as happiness at work goes.
 
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I've been fairly cautious with applying to the lab animal positions for that fear exactly. The interview next week though is with a very well reputed hospital (it's Harvard's main teaching hospital), so that one at least shouldn't raise ethical questions on my resume.

Actually, I was referring to the other way; some Lab animal, food animal, ad other oppurtunities can close down if one is affiliated with some shelters/groups/etc. So, just keep it in mind for both directions!

I only mention it because it had NOT occured to me that my history of zoo work can actually make lab animal programs hesitate to consider me. I mean, who wants to risk biased films from undercover agents? I just hadn't thought about it until it was pointed out to me by several different people in lab animal and NH primate care.
 
I think with shelter work, it's important to make sure you're really ready for the potential for long hours, little pay, and for things to end up much more stressful than you thought they would. I was often pretty stressed and depressed when I worked in the animal shelter. I was also often really happy and thought the job was very rewarding, but I just wanted to point out that it could be a lot less of the whole rewarding puppies and rainbows thing than you think going in. If I were you, I'd see about talking to some staff members about what the working conditions are REALLY like. I think sheltering is definitely a situation where good management/leadership will make or break you as far as happiness at work goes.


THIS. I've worked at my shelter for about a year. We work holidays, long hours, and don't get overtime (because at a non-profit trying to save money during today's economy, why would they pay us overtime?). Everyday we get ungrateful people, stupid customers with children who poke their fingers in cages, ignorant people dropping off animals for no real reason, it's mostly a thankless business. For the past year I have absolutely loved my job, my great staff and management made the bad days worth it and I've always been eager to come into work despite the hours and low pay ($8/hr here). However we recently changed hands and our new manager is awful. I'm not going into too much detail here (not trying to get dooced) but every bad thing that could have happened, has happened.

Through my job I've gotten experience with ferrets, chinchillas, goats, pigs, geese, snakes, rats/mice, guinea pigs, and of course cats and dogs. I can now draw blood, give microchips and injections, restrain animals, and can humanely euthanize. I've gotten about 1200 hours of straight animal experience and have at least 2 amazing references to take with me. I hate that I might be leaving the job that turned me on to vet school, but when shelter work is awful, you're going to hate everyday and it will stress you out when you're not there.

You should really research your shelter. Talk a lot with the people that currently work there. If it's a great place, it can be really rewarding and teach you a ton, but if you're going to be fighting with management that treats you like a janitor or time limits on adoptable animals, you might find it a potentially bad experience, especially after giving up your last semester of college. I think a good job is worth more than that GPA boost, but I think you should be very thorough when researching the shelter. I would be super honest with employees (the ones who will be your coworkers and your superiors). If you're giving up so much to do this job, you should know exactly what you're getting into.

Sorry I wrote a novel, it's just a situation that's pretty near and dear to me right now-- if you've got suggestions on how to deal with incompetent shelter management, I'd love to hear it! :laugh:
 
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