One of my good friends here just left our class. And didn't tell anyone in the class she had decided to do so. Why? So she wouldn't have to give her reasons to everyone and their mother who didn't understand/agree with her decision. I STILL don't understand it, but I have too many things to worry about in my own life, than try to dissect and justify her thought process.
Armymutt, it seems that throughout this, your frustrations are spurred on by your inability to put yourself in another's shoes. I am totally on the same page with the bewilderment and incomprehensibility of someone deciding to leave due to anything other than things we would deem "understandable" (illness, military leave, etc.)- and even then I can't fathom having to leave. After thinking about how impossible that would be for YOU to do, then start to consider how the student leaving must feel. For all you know thewy could have the same exact incomprehensibility and anger towards quitting as you do, and for some reason THEY JUST HAVE TO.
You're 100% correct that people should be damn sure of their decision and capabilities and wants when they accept a spot. I personally have wanted this since I was 5, have been working in clinics since I was 17, and worked my ass off my entire academic career (including high school) all for the sole goal of going to vet school. Once I got to vet school, I was able to conclude, almost immediately, that my multiple years of hands on veterinary experience had in no way prepared me for the school part of it. Vet school is hard for everyone, but speaking on behalf of a very small handful of the class, it's near impossible. I am highly intelligent, but I struggle with school more than most of my other classmates. I envy their ability to make As, Bs and even Cs, without it taking a toll on their sanity and personal life. It would be so nice to be average or even above average and sure of yourself and have it all figured out to where you can even help guide others who are really struggling, along the foolproof path to success as you know it. But when you don't know what it's like to be in over your head when you never imagined in your wildest nightmare you'd be that person, you don't understand the havoc it wreaks on those who determine they can't deal with it.
Maybe they did things just like you did and broke their back to get in, researched every scrap of information that exists and like you, they were at one point 1 million percent content and confident with their decision to go to vet school. Unfortunately, vet school is like having a baby. People can tell you it's hard and you can prepare for the difficulty as best as you possibly can, but you don't truly know what you're dealing with and what life feels like in that moment until you are living that life for yourself. I knew it'd be hard. I didn't know it'd be this bad. I thank the Lord everyday I'm still here.
Just because you haven't been broken by vet school, doesn't mean that everyone else has the same abilities and capacities that you have and should all still be standing with you. What an enjoyable world it would be if everyone insisted on taking the time to scrutinize, calculate, plan and sacrifice their lives for those things in which they were only absolutely committed to. Unfortunately, people have personalities for a reason. It doesn't make them any less prepared or capricious or wasteful because they might have actually trusted their abilities, accomplishments and dreams, instead of countless hours of math or however you seem to have somehow calculated your ability to handle the coursework. What makes you worthy of deciding what an appropriate or "catastrophic" reason for leaving vet school is and what isn't? Who's lives do you know well enough to rule on whether they should or shouldn't be affected so much by something that ultimately ends in them leaving the school? What may not mean anything to you could mean the world to someone else and not only do you not have the right to judge their situation, you don't even have a reason to be concerned about it in the first place. It's got literally nothing to do with you, and it really never did- not when you were on a wait list and not now that you've actually made it on into vet school. Life isn't all about you.
Count your blessings that YOU aren't in THEIR place with that amount of guilt and stress and indecision that precedes a decision like this.
