Why all this? Part 1

So why do I want to be a vet tech and why did I choose to do the online program through San Juan College? Like most people who get into the veterinary profession, i could be called a life long "animal lover" that's practically an requirement for the job. A love and compassion for animals is essential for the field. otherwise why would you feel the need to help them?

 Anyway, i had many animals growing up. Cats, dog, goldfish, beta fish, hamster, gerbil, guinea pig, rabbit, parakeet, degus... i guess that's it. a modest menagerie. For most of my life I'd say "I want to be a marine biologist when I grow up!" I'm sure i didn't really know what that entailed exactly, but I knew I like dolphins and whales.

In college I followed the path of Environmental science. I feel that greater care and understanding of our planet is sorely needed. I didn't go into biology because i have a bad track record with chemistry, among other reasons. Environmentalism just fit better with who I am. I thought a little about going to graduate school, but i didn't want to add to my pile of student loans and i felt like i didn't know what degree i would want to get, what specific field was right for me. i just planned to land a nice environmental job doing research or something.

  But upon leaving college i found that an "environmental job" was elusive. well, because of the tanking economy, ALL jobs were elusive. but the job postings i saw labelled "environmental" were either fundraising/canvasing/awareness campaigns or highly technical/hydrology/forestry/engineering/watershed management jobs. both were problematic. I have always been shy and non-confrontational and was not at all comfortable with the idea of knocking on strangers' doors or asking them for money, even for a good cause. plus a lot of these positions are for volunteers who won't be paid or internships only available to current students. The other jobs seemed to require experience I didn't have, such as a masters in forestry engineering, plus 5 years of on the job experience, plus metalshop certification level 3 or some such. My school was liberal arts based, so my degree was more of a varied overview of the various areas of environmental study(geology, waterscience, biogeography, sustainablity..) but not the in depth specifics that many employers were seeking. i nearly got a job with Americorps compiling data on Oregon wildfires. i was their second choice and was offered a consolation job in the upper east armpit of Oregon, but i turned it down. (I do wonder the path my life would have taken if I'd accepted it)

 After that I was unemployed for longer than I'd like to remember and took whatever cashier job i could get. my man and I moved from Oregon to Washington for a few years and then made the leap to Hawaii in March of 2011. Fearing a lengthy unemployment again, I took the first job I could get and I've stuck there ever since. Of course, one gets the feeling, "I should be doing something better", which got me curious about grad school.

 Basically, Hawaii has two main higher learning options. Either the University of Hawaii system (and its network of community colleges) or Hawaii Pacific University. I checked out what both had to offer and was immediately intimidated. There were a few masters degrees that interested me, like oceanography for example. but none of them really grabbed me like "Yes, this is what I am meant to do!" Also they had steep requirements for getting in. From what I gathered, you had to contact a professor and plan out your interests and goals and area of study before you even began the degree. You must also study, pay for and pass the GRE test. And then there was the $$$$ tuition price tag. The very high price of living here, combined with the very low wages has insured that I have stayed well below the poverty line. On top of all that it seemed like by applying in February i would already be too late for the fall semester 2012?? So I concluded that grad school was not in the cards for me at that time in this place.

 What actually spurred me in this direction was a combination of things plus a career wake up call of sorts. I had been researching a lot of animal care because one Christmas gift to me from my boyfriend was that i could pick out a pet. we'd been without a pet for almost year because it would have been illegal for us to bring our hamster to Hawaii with us. So i was considering the types of pets available and what it would take to take for them. i very nearly got a pet chameleon but the lifespan coupled with the food requirements and other care needs just wasn't feasible. I ended up getting two female rats, an animal I hadn't personally owned before. The older of the two turned out to be pregnant and after watching her give birth, I was the owner of 11 rats! (i didn't keep them all, and eventually sold 8 of them) Of course i had already researched rat care and checked out library books about it and such. actually, I've often borrowed books in the past few years about animals I don't even own, sheep care, goat care, chicken keeping, bee keeping. i find all of it interesting. I've also read James Herriot's stories about being a vet, memoirs by parrot keepers such as Irene Pepperberg who worked with Alex the African Grey, and Gerald Durrell's stories about his fascination with wildlife. besides that, one of my personal goals has been to have a house with land so I can grow many plants and animals.

It was around this time my aunt mentioned that she had always thought I'd make a great veterinarian. I think other people have said this to me before. I guess I had always thought of it as out of reach for some reason, more like "Wow, that would be great to be an astronaut, how cool!" I have one highschool classmate who went into the profession, and I'd feel a tinge of jealousy when i saw facebook photos of her treating exotic animals (especially the sloth!)
ALso my mom found a new vet to care for our animals. this nice young woman makes house visits and the pets adore her. mom said she could see me doing that type of work.

The career wake up call had nothing to do with animals. For some time my boyfriend has pushed me to get a better job. I know he feels I am not using my full potential. We have the same degree and both feel frustrated that we haven't been able to put it to use. I have felt I could be more a career worthy job. I want to be proud of the work I do and I've been stuck in the customer service world for years.

 Let me preface this by saying that I was the only employee at my job for a nearly a year. But in February, I'd noticed a lot of girls bringing in applications. I became suspicious and checked craigslist and found that my boss had posted a want ad and for whatever reason didn't chose to tell me he was looking to hire someone. I had no idea if he was preparing to replace me, or simply add another worker which would lower my work hours. The point is, I suddenly felt very insecure about my position and that forced me to think about what my next job would be and what direction my life was heading in. I had previously applied for a job in this town as a vet assistant but never got a call back. But the seed was planted and somehow I came to this conclusion. "Vet Assistant! how cool would that be?"

Suddenly I had the feeling that I knew what I wanted to do! This had eluded me for years, what did I want to do with my life? Then out of nowhere, I felt vet assistant was the tentative answer to that question. I don't know if it was my aunt's comment, seeing a former class blaze a trail, the rat birth, the endless string of library books, but i realized that i really enjoy learning about animals and taking care of them so why not make it my job and get paid for it. it now occurs to me that when I used to say I wanted to be a marine biologist, it wasn't as if I wanted to study phytoplankton and do lab tests on seawater composition, I had wanted to care for and interact with the dolphins. And as for my undergraduate studies, I've been thinking about what drove me in that area. Trees and watersheds and toxic rain studies are very important, but what I really wanted to do was preserve natural spaces for the benefit of their inhabitants. I wanted to help species that are struggling against habitat loss and dwindling numbers. The animals were the reason. .....


you'll notice I said vet assistant, I am now pursuing "vet tech". read what happened next in part two!