I’m SO GLAD that I took a gap year. First of all, think of this. Without a gap year between undergrad and vet school, and without a gap year between high school and college, you’ve been in school now for 17 years straight and will have been in school for 21 years straight by the time you graduate. Your education career will be old enough to buy alcohol. Sit on that for a second.
Anyway, I took a gap year because I just didn’t feel ready to make this next step. I had to take care of my mental health, get some more experience, and figure out a lot of things before making another 4 year commitment. Prior to graduating, I worked at a small animal clinic for a little over 2 years at about 20 hours a week. It was great experience, but it was my only experience. I met a doctor at that practice who was opening up a practice where I was going to be back home, and he ended up hiring me. Best decision I ever made. He’s been great to work with, a wonderful mentor, and has encouraged me every step of the way. He was very calm during the whole application process, telling me over and over that I’m absolutely going to get into Penn, and that he had no doubt. That made one of us. It was just great to have him there for me to reassure me, and he wrote me what I’m assuming is the best letter of rec that has ever been written (he’s going to give it to me on my last day of work before I leave for school).
It’s just been great to not worry about classes and exams for a little while. It allowed me to fully experience what it’s like to work in veterinary medicine and to have that be my only focus outside of my personal life, like it will be when I’m a vet. I had never experienced life without worrying about classes before and it’s been great. It reassured me that this is the right field for me. I go home at night not thinking about an exam I have to study for, but about a patient that has been tricky to treat, and I come back to work with different things to present to the doctor to think about as treatment options. Working at such a small practice has given me the ability to sort of play doctor, since my boss lets me act as though I’m the doctor while I’m in the back not doing anything, thinking of what treatments to give, what tests to run, different diagnoses, etc. I present everything to him and he tells me what is right and what is wrong, or what he will do differently for the actual patient. It’s something that I think a lot of people haven’t had the chance to do prior to vet school, and it’s been really awesome.
Basically, I think you should find an experience that reaffirms your decision to go into vet med. It should be something that you will really enjoy, can put all your energy into, and will be good to talk about in interviews. If you can make money doing it, then that would be perfect. Applications are expensive. Working as much as possible will make it easy to afford. Use this next year to forget about what it’s like to be in school, and to learn what it’s like when you’re not. You’ve been in school for nearly 2 decades. You’ll be in school for another 4 at least before you experience the real world. Let this be your exposure to the real world before you leave it again, and let it shape you a little bit to prepare you for interviews. Of course people will have their own opinions on this, but that’s my take.
