Complete Career Change & Experience Hrs W/ Full Time Job

[CatLady17]

Hi everyone, this is my 1st post and I'm hoping to get advice from those who had a complete career change and decided to go to vet school. I have been trying to read through this forum as much as I can. I'm still a little concerned about making a complete career change because unlike others, my undergraduate studies and jobs had absolutely nothing to do with animals or even slightly relative to any science field.

A long post so thank you for reading to the end

I’m in my early 30s. In high school, I took almost all the science AP exams (4 or 5 scores), knowing that I did NOT want to study or take any science course in college. Also had very decent GPA and SAT scores. I went on to a pretty good university, double majoring in 2 non-science majors. Took no science courses except for an intro physics class as part of GE.

Fast forward, I currently work in executive management. It's a good pay and I am overall OK with it. However, about 3 years ago I started volunteering at an animal shelter (doing various things like husbandry, socialization, adoptions). Mostly with cats but also sometimes with dogs, birds, and rabbits. There's actually a wildlife dept. but I never volunteered there. And I'm also the proud parent to my 2 cats.

I have since considered a career change and appling to veterinarian school (I know. A huge jump). Of course not now but I want to give it a try in 2 years or so while I take pre-req science courses at a CC and getting my experience hours. I have also talked to my family about this; they are willing to support me financially if needed. If I do this according to plan, it's going to be one of the biggest decisions I've ever had to make. So I'm hoping to get some good advice from people who had or is going through something similar.

1. I don't want to quite my job (at least not for now). I see that many either work full time or part time as veterinarian assistant or in a field/job that involves animals. For now, I still want to keep my full time job both for financial reasons and for the fact that if I switch to a completely different career path, there's more uncertainly just in case if vet school doesn't work out for me. Then I will need to go back to the job market and explain why there's a few years gap between me leaving a c-level management job and working at a non-management position with animals. Has anyone tried to keep a regular job while also work part-time and volunteer as well as taking on college courses? How many part-time/volunteer hours were/are you doing (while maintaining a full time job)? How was/is your experience with doing all these things simultaneously?

2. Right now I volunteer for about 5-10 hrs each week at the animal shelter. I’ve been doing this for a while and accumulated a few hundreds of hours (all animal experience. No veterinarian experience). Since I have a full time job (some flexibility. Can usually leave early), any part time job/volunteer/classes has to be either in late afternoon/night or on weekends. I do want to continue volunteering at this shelter as I loved my experience here and also want to try my hands in wildlife and other areas. However, I do need to start getting some veterinarian experience. For anyone who had or is doing something like this, what are some places that you can recommend to rack up veterinarian experience during non-business hours (ie: after-work, night, weekend)?

3. I looked at different vet schools. I still need to do more research but since I’m a CA resident, my top choice would be UCD. I do not have any of the science course req. for vet schools. I’m also shameful to admit that I did not maintain a stellar GPA in college (graduated a few years ago). Not because I couldn’t handle it but simply because I slacked off. I had great high school GPA and science AP scores so I think with some hard work, I can still do it. I plan to take science courses at CC to boost my science and last 45 GPA while also to prove to myself that I can actually handle vet school curriculum. For anyone with similar experience or is going through something similar, how was/is your experience taking on college classes while maintaining a full time job and other part time and volunteer obligations? Did you try to spread out your course work to allow yourself time for other things? Or do you recommend to not have other part-time/volunteer jobs while you take college classes? I’m trying to see if I should take some classes first before spreading myself too thin with other jobs or volunteer hours.

4. With 2-3 years of preparation, I’m hoping to apply to vet school in my mid 30s. Do you think this is still feasible? I understand that maintaining a not relative full time job will “delay” my preparation time vs. leaving my job and "doing" this full time. I would like to hear from people on both sides. Did you prepare for vet schools as a “side job” or weekend thing or did you switch to an animal related field and dedicated most of your time in preparation for the vet school application?

5. I have recently joined a friend of mine in doing TNR work. Our plan is to “create” our own after work/weekend rescue (we both have full time jobs). For now, it’s more like a “hobby” because it’s something that we are both passionate about. Is this something “worth” spending a lot of hours on? I already accumulated a lot of hours for animal experience from volunteering at the shelter. I understand that it may be good that I volunteer with different types of animals. But among the same kind of animals, will vet schools want to see more “varieties” of experiences (not that TNR and post-op care are significantly different from what we do at the shelter but I thought may be it’s better to have 1000 hrs of different jobs vs. 1000 hrs of just cleaning kennels)? If not preferred, I’d like to limit the amount of time I spend on this because although I love doing it, I may be trying to take on too many tasks while also covering everything else.

This is not an impulse decision. I started thinking about going to vet school last year and after months of consideration, I decided to actually do it. I’ve already registered for a class at CC and I’m hoping to see if I can shadow at one of my local animal hospitals. I would love to hear from anyone who was or is in the same/similar boat as I do. Any advice or suggestion is greatly appreciated and thanks everyone for being this patient for my long post.

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[Coopah]

Hi everyone, this is my 1st post and I'm hoping to get advice from those who had a complete career change and decided to go to vet school. I have been trying to read through this forum as much as I can. I'm still a little concerned about making a complete career change because unlike others, my undergraduate studies and jobs had absolutely nothing to do with animals or even slightly relative to any science field.

A long post so thank you for reading to the end

I’m in my early 30s. In high school, I took almost all the science AP exams (4 or 5 scores), knowing that I did NOT want to study or take any science course in college. Also had very decent GPA and SAT scores. I went on to a pretty good university, double majoring in 2 non-science majors. Took no science courses except for an intro physics class as part of GE.

Fast forward, I currently work in executive management. It's a good pay and I am overall OK with it. However, about 3 years ago I started volunteering at an animal shelter (doing various things like husbandry, socialization, adoptions). Mostly with cats but also sometimes with dogs, birds, and rabbits. There's actually a wildlife dept. but I never volunteered there. And I'm also the proud parent to my 2 cats.

I have since considered a career change and appling to veterinarian school (I know. A huge jump). Of course not now but I want to give it a try in 2 years or so while I take pre-req science courses at a CC and getting my experience hours. I have also talked to my family about this; they are willing to support me financially if needed. If I do this according to plan, it's going to be one of the biggest decisions I've ever had to make. So I'm hoping to get some good advice from people who had or is going through something similar.

1. I don't want to quite my job (at least not for now). I see that many either work full time or part time as veterinarian assistant or in a field/job that involves animals. For now, I still want to keep my full time job both for financial reasons and for the fact that if I switch to a completely different career path, there's more uncertainly just in case if vet school doesn't work out for me. Then I will need to go back to the job market and explain why there's a few years gap between me leaving a c-level management job and working at a non-management position with animals. Has anyone tried to keep a regular job while also work part-time and volunteer as well as taking on college courses? How many part-time/volunteer hours were/are you doing (while maintaining a full time job)? How was/is your experience with doing all these things simultaneously?

2. Right now I volunteer for about 5-10 hrs each week at the animal shelter. I’ve been doing this for a while and accumulated a few hundreds of hours (all animal experience. No veterinarian experience). Since I have a full time job (some flexibility. Can usually leave early), any part time job/volunteer/classes has to be either in late afternoon/night or on weekends. I do want to continue volunteering at this shelter as I loved my experience here and also want to try my hands in wildlife and other areas. However, I do need to start getting some veterinarian experience. For anyone who had or is doing something like this, what are some places that you can recommend to rack up veterinarian experience during non-business hours (ie: after-work, night, weekend)?

3. I looked at different vet schools. I still need to do more research but since I’m a CA resident, my top choice would be UCD. I do not have any of the science course req. for vet schools. I’m also shameful to admit that I did not maintain a stellar GPA in college (graduated a few years ago). Not because I couldn’t handle it but simply because I slacked off. I had great high school GPA and science AP scores so I think with some hard work, I can still do it. I plan to take science courses at CC to boost my science and last 45 GPA while also to prove to myself that I can actually handle vet school curriculum. For anyone with similar experience or is going through something similar, how was/is your experience taking on college classes while maintaining a full time job and other part time and volunteer obligations? Did you try to spread out your course work to allow yourself time for other things? Or do you recommend to not have other part-time/volunteer jobs while you take college classes? I’m trying to see if I should take some classes first before spreading myself too thin with other jobs or volunteer hours.

4. With 2-3 years of preparation, I’m hoping to apply to vet school in my mid 30s. Do you think this is still feasible? I understand that maintaining a not relative full time job will “delay” my preparation time vs. leaving my job and "doing" this full time. I would like to hear from people on both sides. Did you prepare for vet schools as a “side job” or weekend thing or did you switch to an animal related field and dedicated most of your time in preparation for the vet school application?

5. I have recently joined a friend of mine in doing TNR work. Our plan is to “create” our own after work/weekend rescue (we both have full time jobs). For now, it’s more like a “hobby” because it’s something that we are both passionate about. Is this something “worth” spending a lot of hours on? I already accumulated a lot of hours for animal experience from volunteering at the shelter. I understand that it may be good that I volunteer with different types of animals. But among the same kind of animals, will vet schools want to see more “varieties” of experiences (not that TNR and post-op care are significantly different from what we do at the shelter but I thought may be it’s better to have 1000 hrs of different jobs vs. 1000 hrs of just cleaning kennels)? If not preferred, I’d like to limit the amount of time I spend on this because although I love doing it, I may be trying to take on too many tasks while also covering everything else.

This is not an impulse decision. I started thinking about going to vet school last year and after months of consideration, I decided to actually do it. I’ve already registered for a class at CC and I’m hoping to see if I can shadow at one of my local animal hospitals. I would love to hear from anyone who was or is in the same/similar boat as I do. Any advice or suggestion is greatly appreciated and thanks everyone for being this patient for my long post.

I was in your shoes a few years ago. I didn't take any science courses in undergrad and I am still working as a data analyst at an investment company full-time. It took me four more years of prerequisites but I am finally going to vet school in the fall. So to answer your questions

1. I took night classes at a four year anniversary near where I worked. Some classes were during the day so I had to take "long" lunch breaks and work with my boss about hours. I also did volunteer on the weekends at an emergency clinic. Total I would take two classes at a time, and then work Saturday and Sunday at the emergency clinic. I'm not going to lie, it was rough. A lot of my school work, I did at my real job, and I eventually I had to drop my hours down on the weekend because I couldn't keep it up. My advice is to balance as best you can. Take one or two classes if you can and volunteer when you can, but make sure to make time for family and relaxation.

2. I had to accumulate all my experience this way too. I recommend an emergency hospital to shadow at. They're open all the time and are usually short staffed. I had to verify that I had liability insurance to work there though so I had to go through my school and register for a credit to get the insurance. So you might want to do this after you start school if they require insurance.

3. I too had a pretty crappy undergrad GPA. Good news UC Davis doesn't care. They don't even look at your cumulative GPA. Since that is your in-state school I would highly recommend trying to go there. They look at your last 45 GPA and your science GPA along with the quantitative section of your GRE. So What I did was take all of my prerequisites after I graduated, except physics, like you. I ended up having all of my last 45 credit hours be after I graduated. Most of my science courses too. So I took one or two classes at a time. That was good enough for me. I ended up doing a lot of my school work at my regular work to compensate. I still had plenty of free time in the evenings as a result. However, when I added on weekends volunteering, it got rough fast. I was stressed pretty much all the time. I was trying to do 20 hours on the weekend and take two classes during the week along with a forty hour work week. It did not work. So take it easy on yourself. Take a few years and build up over time. Do one day a week for a year or two. I built all my hours (980) over one year working at one hospital, and my family and I suffered for it.

4. It is absolutely feasible. I didn't view it as my side job. I viewed it as my passion. I worked so I could afford to do this. I don't know what your financial state it, but I worked while doing this to afford tuition for my prerequisites and pay off my undergraduate loans so I could take on vet school and not be buried in debt. If I'm lucky, I'll graduate with a little over 100k in debt. For a vet, that's phenomenal! And I couldn't have done that without working my soul sucking corporate job as long as I did.

5. As far as vet school is concerned, most don't care about animal hours. They care about general volunteer work in your community and yes, some amount of animal hours, but the amount doesn't really matter. I love that you love to do this, and I'm sure the experience will be worthwhile. As far as vet school goes, they don't really care.

For some advice. I would recommend checking all your CC classes will meet the prerequisites at UC Davis. There is a chart on their website you can check to see if your college qualifies. If it's not on that list, then fill out their science course substitution form to verify. The last thing you want to do is spend all that time and money working toward this and find out afterwards it didn't count.

Finally, UC Davis is a very numbers heavy school. They care about these things in this order. Last 45 GPA, science GPA, Quantitative GRE, Letter Of Recommendation (the scoring section). This might change in future years, but that is all they care about when evaluating your application. After that, it all comes down to the interview if you manage to get one. They rank everyone based on how they did on their interview and offer acceptances based off that alone.

Please let me know if you have any more questions! I'm always here to help!

 

[Lupin21]

I also recommend you try to get career changers who are actually veterinarians who have graduated in the past five years or so opinions. Getting experience is definitely a priority here to make sure taking on all this is actually what you think it will be. As someone who changed from a job I actually loved, I can't answer yet if it was worth it (haven't graduated yet), but I at least knew what I was leaving and what I was getting myself into.

 

[CatLady17]

I was in your shoes a few years ago. I didn't take any science courses in undergrad and I am still working as a data analyst at an investment company full-time. It took me four more years of prerequisites but I am finally going to vet school in the fall. So to answer your questions

1. I took night classes at a four year anniversary near where I worked. Some classes were during the day so I had to take "long" lunch breaks and work with my boss about hours. I also did volunteer on the weekends at an emergency clinic. Total I would take two classes at a time, and then work Saturday and Sunday at the emergency clinic. I'm not going to lie, it was rough. A lot of my school work, I did at my real job, and I eventually I had to drop my hours down on the weekend because I couldn't keep it up. My advice is to balance as best you can. Take one or two classes if you can and volunteer when you can, but make sure to make time for family and relaxation.

2. I had to accumulate all my experience this way too. I recommend an emergency hospital to shadow at. They're open all the time and are usually short staffed. I had to verify that I had liability insurance to work there though so I had to go through my school and register for a credit to get the insurance. So you might want to do this after you start school if they require insurance.

3. I too had a pretty crappy undergrad GPA. Good news UC Davis doesn't care. They don't even look at your cumulative GPA. Since that is your in-state school I would highly recommend trying to go there. They look at your last 45 GPA and your science GPA along with the quantitative section of your GRE. So What I did was take all of my prerequisites after I graduated, except physics, like you. I ended up having all of my last 45 credit hours be after I graduated. Most of my science courses too. So I took one or two classes at a time. That was good enough for me. I ended up doing a lot of my school work at my regular work to compensate. I still had plenty of free time in the evenings as a result. However, when I added on weekends volunteering, it got rough fast. I was stressed pretty much all the time. I was trying to do 20 hours on the weekend and take two classes during the week along with a forty hour work week. It did not work. So take it easy on yourself. Take a few years and build up over time. Do one day a week for a year or two. I built all my hours (980) over one year working at one hospital, and my family and I suffered for it.

4. It is absolutely feasible. I didn't view it as my side job. I viewed it as my passion. I worked so I could afford to do this. I don't know what your financial state it, but I worked while doing this to afford tuition for my prerequisites and pay off my undergraduate loans so I could take on vet school and not be buried in debt. If I'm lucky, I'll graduate with a little over 100k in debt. For a vet, that's phenomenal! And I couldn't have done that without working my soul sucking corporate job as long as I did.

5. As far as vet school is concerned, most don't care about animal hours. They care about general volunteer work in your community and yes, some amount of animal hours, but the amount doesn't really matter. I love that you love to do this, and I'm sure the experience will be worthwhile. As far as vet school goes, they don't really care.

For some advice. I would recommend checking all your CC classes will meet the prerequisites at UC Davis. There is a chart on their website you can check to see if your college qualifies. If it's not on that list, then fill out their science course substitution form to verify. The last thing you want to do is spend all that time and money working toward this and find out afterwards it didn't count.

Finally, UC Davis is a very numbers heavy school. They care about these things in this order. Last 45 GPA, science GPA, Quantitative GRE, Letter Of Recommendation (the scoring section). This might change in future years, but that is all they care about when evaluating your application. After that, it all comes down to the interview if you manage to get one. They rank everyone based on how they did on their interview and offer acceptances based off that alone.

Please let me know if you have any more questions! I'm always here to help!

Hi Coopah, thank you very much for that very detailed response and lots of great information. And seeing that you will be attending UCD gives me even more hopes at this.
I'm going to take up your advice on the emergency hospital. Although my work hours are somewhat flexible, I want to do everything either after work or on weekends. I think I just need to prepare myself mentally to go back to the colleges days when I had double majors (I actually ended up almost with another minor), 20 hrs/week part-time job, a volunteer job, club events, and may be 2 hrs of sleep lol.

And yes, I want to stay at my full time job mostly for financial reasons too. I'm very fortunate that my parents paid for my undergraduate tuition (I also had a few scholarships/grants and worked a part-time job to help me pay rent and food). I came out of college with no debt. I had discussions with my family and they are willing to support my again if I want to go back to school. For this, I am very grateful because that is one less factor I have to worry about. But I know preparation will be a few years of work. And without a full time job during this period, I would feel extremely insecure relying just on my savings.

I have a question regarding shadowing at an animal hospital or emergency hospital. Do you just go in with your resume and ask if there's any open position for volunteers or shadow?? Even if I have no previous hospital or veterinarian experience? My volunteer work at the animal shelter is not in the clinic and also does not involve any veterinarian. My work is mostly on the behavior side, plus some adoptions and husbandry. Do animal hospitals or clinics usually have potential vet school applicants shadow or volunteer? Is there any thing I should do first to boost my chance of actually getting any shadow work? Again, I am very new to the whole veterinarian experience thing. I'm just imaging that if someone comes to our company and ask to shadow (with no pay), I would reject them if they have absolutely no experience in our industry.

 

[Awapi]

Coopah did a great job addressing all the bullets, I just have a couple of overall comments since we are around the same age .

I was fortunate to primarily have to deal with the issue of experience hours, but I did re-take a few classes to show I still had an aptitude for in-class hard science learning (it had been 12+ years since I graduated undergrad when I applied). I have some flexibility to my hours at work if there is not an urgent situation ongoing, but usually work 80+ hour weeks and sometimes travel. The hardest part of re-taking classes for me was unexpected - it was the clashing of worlds and a sense of constantly feeling torn. For example: it was hard for me to make a decision between an exam for class and presenting my research at a conference for work, especially since (in the moment) the classes felt less "real" than my job. It was also frustrating because I enjoy my job so I was annoyed when I had to delegate something I wanted to do because I needed to leave to go to class. I had been working professionally for a while, so people were used to a certain level of dedication (read: workaholic) from me and I often felt like if I did let the classes/volunteer work affect my work or personal life then people wouldn't understand (but that was more me projecting than anything). I mostly just constantly felt frustrated when I wasn't able to do something I would normally be able to do because of class when I didn't even know if I would get in to vet school! I don't know your work situation, but it can be hard to try to mesh two worlds when you are used to a certain status quo. All that said though, if I was doing a more reasonable 40-45 hour a week schedule, I definitely could have taken more classes or worked part time (even though the "clashing of worlds" issue would have still been there), so I do think it's possible to do all those things...depending on the hours you are expected to work in your "regular" job and the intensity of your work environment (overall stress level, etc).

As far as experience goes - I second the emergency clinics mentioned above. I also volunteered at a SA low-cost vaccine clinic at a shelter on the weekend. It worked out great - I pulled up vaccines and helped out the vet since they are understaffed. It was a pretty non-invasive time in my life, 4-5 hours every other Sunday. It didn't feel onerous, but the hours really added up pretty quickly.

I am also in my early/mid-30s, but I am starting in the fall so I can't tell you if it's worth it or not yet . I did recently meet a person who will be in my cohort who is in her early 40s and she had to re-do all her science courses and get experience - she ultimately decided to quit her job in IT so she could work part time as a vet tech and do more classes per semester while still maintaining a somewhat normal social life...like the normal travel she usually did with her husband. Not saying that's at all what you should do - but just an example of two people choosing different paths.

Some unsolicited info: I started thinking about vet school about 2.5 years before I applied and only had one school I was interested in (in-state). Between starting that process and actually applying, the school made a MAJOR change in pre-requisite requirements that actually would have precluded me from being able to apply had they applied it to me. Fortunately, I was able to get a waiver. It's just something to keep in mind that anytime you are preparing over a course of a few years, it's possible that the school might change it's requirements (for example, maybe not accepting certain cc classes, etc). I was able to get the waiver because I reached out to the school 2.5 years ago for an informational interview and then kept in touch with the admissions staff (just an email every 4-6 months) and they kindly agreed to "grandfather" me in. I'd recommend reaching out to schools you are interested now to just establish a relationship. Maybe nothing will change about their requirements, but then you'll still have put in some work developing connections, so it's still a win-win .

 

[CatLady17]

I also recommend you try to get career changers who are actually veterinarians who have graduated in the past five years or so opinions. Getting experience is definitely a priority here to make sure taking on all this is actually what you think it will be. As someone who changed from a job I actually loved, I can't answer yet if it was worth it (haven't graduated yet), but I at least knew what I was leaving and what I was getting myself into.

Hi Lupin21, yes, I would love to hear anyone who changed their career path and is either going to or has graduated. I can't say that I love my job. I don't dislike it but it's not something I'm passionate about or can see myself doing in 5-10 years. Surprisingly, I've had quite a few people and family members who told me how lucky I am with my current job. But it's just not something I love, which is why I started volunteering at an animal shelter.

I would love a job to work with animals and had at one point last year considered working in a shelter or a job that involves animals (without being a veterinarian). However, after speaking with my co-volunteers and staffs at the shelter, I would need to at least be stuck with McDonald wages (may be a little exaggerated but I have been told to not expect anything even close to a good paying job) for a few years first if I want to switch to a non-profit or shelter. I don't know if this is true for every place but at least that's what's going at the shelter I volunteer at. Some staffs there are taking up a second part-time job to compensate for the low pay.

It's just not going to work for me (and my family who probably will freak out if I switch from a salaried management position to an hourly wage). Plus, my interests are animal nutrition and internal medicine. So going to vet school just seems like the most logical route. Would love to hear what everyone's opinion on this.

 

[that redhead]

Hi everyone, this is my 1st post and I'm hoping to get advice from those who had a complete career change and decided to go to vet school. I have been trying to read through this forum as much as I can. I'm still a little concerned about making a complete career change because unlike others, my undergraduate studies and jobs had absolutely nothing to do with animals or even slightly relative to any science field.

A long post so thank you for reading to the end

I’m in my early 30s. In high school, I took almost all the science AP exams (4 or 5 scores), knowing that I did NOT want to study or take any science course in college. Also had very decent GPA and SAT scores. I went on to a pretty good university, double majoring in 2 non-science majors. Took no science courses except for an intro physics class as part of GE.

Fast forward, I currently work in executive management. It's a good pay and I am overall OK with it. However, about 3 years ago I started volunteering at an animal shelter (doing various things like husbandry, socialization, adoptions). Mostly with cats but also sometimes with dogs, birds, and rabbits. There's actually a wildlife dept. but I never volunteered there. And I'm also the proud parent to my 2 cats.

I have since considered a career change and appling to veterinarian school (I know. A huge jump). Of course not now but I want to give it a try in 2 years or so while I take pre-req science courses at a CC and getting my experience hours. I have also talked to my family about this; they are willing to support me financially if needed. If I do this according to plan, it's going to be one of the biggest decisions I've ever had to make. So I'm hoping to get some good advice from people who had or is going through something similar.

1. I don't want to quite my job (at least not for now). I see that many either work full time or part time as veterinarian assistant or in a field/job that involves animals. For now, I still want to keep my full time job both for financial reasons and for the fact that if I switch to a completely different career path, there's more uncertainly just in case if vet school doesn't work out for me. Then I will need to go back to the job market and explain why there's a few years gap between me leaving a c-level management job and working at a non-management position with animals. Has anyone tried to keep a regular job while also work part-time and volunteer as well as taking on college courses? How many part-time/volunteer hours were/are you doing (while maintaining a full time job)? How was/is your experience with doing all these things simultaneously?

2. Right now I volunteer for about 5-10 hrs each week at the animal shelter. I’ve been doing this for a while and accumulated a few hundreds of hours (all animal experience. No veterinarian experience). Since I have a full time job (some flexibility. Can usually leave early), any part time job/volunteer/classes has to be either in late afternoon/night or on weekends. I do want to continue volunteering at this shelter as I loved my experience here and also want to try my hands in wildlife and other areas. However, I do need to start getting some veterinarian experience. For anyone who had or is doing something like this, what are some places that you can recommend to rack up veterinarian experience during non-business hours (ie: after-work, night, weekend)?

3. I looked at different vet schools. I still need to do more research but since I’m a CA resident, my top choice would be UCD. I do not have any of the science course req. for vet schools. I’m also shameful to admit that I did not maintain a stellar GPA in college (graduated a few years ago). Not because I couldn’t handle it but simply because I slacked off. I had great high school GPA and science AP scores so I think with some hard work, I can still do it. I plan to take science courses at CC to boost my science and last 45 GPA while also to prove to myself that I can actually handle vet school curriculum. For anyone with similar experience or is going through something similar, how was/is your experience taking on college classes while maintaining a full time job and other part time and volunteer obligations? Did you try to spread out your course work to allow yourself time for other things? Or do you recommend to not have other part-time/volunteer jobs while you take college classes? I’m trying to see if I should take some classes first before spreading myself too thin with other jobs or volunteer hours.

4. With 2-3 years of preparation, I’m hoping to apply to vet school in my mid 30s. Do you think this is still feasible? I understand that maintaining a not relative full time job will “delay” my preparation time vs. leaving my job and "doing" this full time. I would like to hear from people on both sides. Did you prepare for vet schools as a “side job” or weekend thing or did you switch to an animal related field and dedicated most of your time in preparation for the vet school application?

5. I have recently joined a friend of mine in doing TNR work. Our plan is to “create” our own after work/weekend rescue (we both have full time jobs). For now, it’s more like a “hobby” because it’s something that we are both passionate about. Is this something “worth” spending a lot of hours on? I already accumulated a lot of hours for animal experience from volunteering at the shelter. I understand that it may be good that I volunteer with different types of animals. But among the same kind of animals, will vet schools want to see more “varieties” of experiences (not that TNR and post-op care are significantly different from what we do at the shelter but I thought may be it’s better to have 1000 hrs of different jobs vs. 1000 hrs of just cleaning kennels)? If not preferred, I’d like to limit the amount of time I spend on this because although I love doing it, I may be trying to take on too many tasks while also covering everything else.

This is not an impulse decision. I started thinking about going to vet school last year and after months of consideration, I decided to actually do it. I’ve already registered for a class at CC and I’m hoping to see if I can shadow at one of my local animal hospitals. I would love to hear from anyone who was or is in the same/similar boat as I do. Any advice or suggestion is greatly appreciated and thanks everyone for being this patient for my long post.

Honestly, I think your planning is well-intentioned but you really need to get some time in shadowing a vet before you can make the decision to switch. If you're being paid well and enjoying volunteering at the shelter, my advice is more along the lines of just keeping doing that. But get some time in wth a vet to see if it's what you want to do first. Then start laying out a timeline. Also, paging Dr. @LetItSnow

 

[TrashPanda]

I'm a career-changer just a little younger than you who will be starting at UC Davis this year. Feel free to ask me anything!

1. I don't want to quite my job (at least not for now). I see that many either work full time or part time as veterinarian assistant or in a field/job that involves animals. For now, I still want to keep my full time job both for financial reasons and for the fact that if I switch to a completely different career path, there's more uncertainly just in case if vet school doesn't work out for me. Then I will need to go back to the job market and explain why there's a few years gap between me leaving a c-level management job and working at a non-management position with animals. Has anyone tried to keep a regular job while also work part-time and volunteer as well as taking on college courses? How many part-time/volunteer hours were/are you doing (while maintaining a full time job)? How was/is your experience with doing all these things simultaneously?

This is a good plan. To be blunt, until you've gotten some veterinary experience, you don't actually know you want to be a vet. I strongly recommend getting some before doing anything extreme like quitting your job. You can start slowly by shadowing and just taking a CC class or two.

I'm a little different in that although I did totally change careers, I had already taken most of the pre-reqs in college and gotten a little vet/animal experience. But yes, I worked full-time, took additional classes, and got experience. I did not work part-time- it would have been tough to fit in my schedule and would have made getting diversity of experience more difficult (pretty much all practices by me are small animal).

So I worked full-time, took classes around that (sometimes in long lunch breaks or after work, and sometimes online), and volunteered. I usually worked 40 hrs a week, took 2 classes at a time (sometimes 3), and volunteered ~4 days a week. It varied with the season but was usually a couple hours before work 2-3 days plus good portions of the weekend. A longer shift like Coopah recommended would definitely be more efficient, but I really loved where I was volunteering and what I was doing.

2.

Right now I volunteer for about 5-10 hrs each week at the animal shelter. I’ve been doing this for a while and accumulated a few hundreds of hours (all animal experience. No veterinarian experience). Since I have a full time job (some flexibility. Can usually leave early), any part time job/volunteer/classes has to be either in late afternoon/night or on weekends. I do want to continue volunteering at this shelter as I loved my experience here and also want to try my hands in wildlife and other areas. However, I do need to start getting some veterinarian experience. For anyone who had or is doing something like this, what are some places that you can recommend to rack up veterinarian experience during non-business hours (ie: after-work, night, weekend)?

Most of my experience came from animal shelters and a wildlife clinic, often at weird hours before or after work. I also used my vacation days for trips (like RAVS) or just extra time volunteering.

3.

I looked at different vet schools. I still need to do more research but since I’m a CA resident, my top choice would be UCD. I do not have any of the science course req. for vet schools. I’m also shameful to admit that I did not maintain a stellar GPA in college (graduated a few years ago). Not because I couldn’t handle it but simply because I slacked off. I had great high school GPA and science AP scores so I think with some hard work, I can still do it. I plan to take science courses at CC to boost my science and last 45 GPA while also to prove to myself that I can actually handle vet school curriculum. For anyone with similar experience or is going through something similar, how was/is your experience taking on college classes while maintaining a full time job and other part time and volunteer obligations? Did you try to spread out your course work to allow yourself time for other things? Or do you recommend to not have other part-time/volunteer jobs while you take college classes? I’m trying to see if I should take some classes first before spreading myself too thin with other jobs or volunteer hours.

I was a science major in college and had no difficulties with the classes I took later but YMMV. I strongly, strongly recommend shadowing at several clinics (and asking a variety of vets the pros and cons about the field) before fully jumping in.

4.

With 2-3 years of preparation, I’m hoping to apply to vet school in my mid 30s. Do you think this is still feasible? I understand that maintaining a not relative full time job will “delay” my preparation time vs. leaving my job and "doing" this full time. I would like to hear from people on both sides. Did you prepare for vet schools as a “side job” or weekend thing or did you switch to an animal related field and dedicated most of your time in preparation for the vet school application?

Sounds feasible. I suggest drawing up a plan for the next few years. What classes do you have to take, and when? How many hours of experience do you think you can get per week? How many will that add up to be when you apply? How will you get diverse experience? (Schools like to see several areas of vet med- small animal, large animal, equine, lab animal, whatever you can get.)

5.

I have recently joined a friend of mine in doing TNR work. Our plan is to “create” our own after work/weekend rescue (we both have full time jobs). For now, it’s more like a “hobby” because it’s something that we are both passionate about. Is this something “worth” spending a lot of hours on? I already accumulated a lot of hours for animal experience from volunteering at the shelter. I understand that it may be good that I volunteer with different types of animals. But among the same kind of animals, will vet schools want to see more “varieties” of experiences (not that TNR and post-op care are significantly different from what we do at the shelter but I thought may be it’s better to have 1000 hrs of different jobs vs. 1000 hrs of just cleaning kennels)? If not preferred, I’d like to limit the amount of time I spend on this because although I love doing it, I may be trying to take on too many tasks while also covering everything else.

Up to you. Do you have a lot of experience with TNR? If not (and even if you do, really) why are you starting your own group instead of working with an established one?

Vet schools like leadership, but the most important things are GPAs and vet experience so prioritize those.

This is not an impulse decision. I started thinking about going to vet school last year and after months of consideration, I decided to actually do it.

I know I'm kind of raining on your parade here, but you need actual vet experience before you can truly make a good decision. You said about your job: "It's a good pay and I am overall OK with it." A lot of vets know from when they're little kids they want to be vets, enter the field with a ton of passion, and yet that's how they end up feeling about their jobs. Minus the good pay part. And sometimes minus the "overall OK with it" part too.

Having financial support can make a difference, but please do some research on the negative aspects of the field and ask a lot of probing questions when you shadow.

For what it's worth, it looks like you've thought this through quite a bit and have a good plan. Best of luck!

 

[MSUCVM2021]

There have been some great examples about but also wanted to take a minute to say it is possible. I also went back to complete my pre-requisites after being out of college for a few years while working my full-time job. I will say that there were times that it was challenging and many LATE nights but in my mind that was also preparing me for the intensity of vet school. Fortunately, I have the most supportive husband who understands that my career is important to me and is willing to do a majority of the house/ animal chores so I can take the time to pursue a career in veterinary medicine. Below I have answer some of your questions by giving stories of my own person experience.

1. When I decided to return to college the first thing I did was have conversation with my current employer. I was completely upfront and honest with my intentions and expressed my interest in staying with the agency. Needless to say, they were 90% supportive (I couldn't really expect anything more than that). What I mean by that is, I was still expected to come to work as I normally did but if I could put a plan together of how I would accomplish my daily tasks by coming in an hour early so I could leave an hour early they would generally approve my proposal. I also once used my APL (all purpose leave) every Tuesday and Thursday for 7 weeks over the summer so I could complete a course. In order to do this I once again had to put a plan together for how I would accomplish my tasks. Furthermore, in order to complete the necessary pre-requisites I took mostly night classes. My schedule usually consisted of working 7-4, driving an hour to college, taking classes from 5-10, and then driving an hour home just so I could do it all over the next day. There were semesters that were tiring but once again so is vet school. As for finding time in my schedule to acquire veterinary experience hours, I volunteered at clinics on the weekends. I didn't have an abundance of hours when I applied but when I reached out to the veterinary school I was interested in applying to they stated that it was more important to have quality experience hours. So I focused my time on making sure that I was getting quality hours because I knew that I wouldn't have 1000 hours. Also, because I was volunteering at these clinics they were more willing to work with my schedule. I wasn't necessarily committed to being there every Saturday from 8-5. This really helped ease some of the stress.

2. As mentioned in my response to question one, find clinics that are open in the evenings or weekends. I live in a rural community with very few resources but there are some clinics open for 4-8 hours on Saturdays. Even if you only are able to do 4 hours every Saturday for an entire year that's still 200 hours, that's better than nothing, especially if you can make those quality hours. Since I am under the impression that you are just going back it is going to be a couple years until you apply so by the time you apply it would be reasonable to thing you could get around 500 hours (that is more than I had when I applied).

3. When I went back I took as many classes as my schedule would allow. Since I only typically had evenings I took at least 7-9 credits but sometimes it would be difficult to fit more into my schedule. Also, since many of the pre-requisites classes had pre-requisites at my school I could only take the classes in a specific order. I would usually look at what classes were offered for the entire year and try to plan our my schedule for the entire year. At the university I attended, classes were usually offered at similar times each year. I used this information to plan out the 2.5 years that it took me to complete the pre-reqs. There were only a couple times that it didn't work out.

4. I guess you could say that I worked to apply to vet school as a "side job". The answer to this can be found in the response to number one.

5. As stated previously, "vet schools like leadership, but the most important things are GPAs and vet experience so prioritize those." If I had anything to add to this, start researching the schools you are interested in and get to know what is important to them and focus on that.

Hi everyone, this is my 1st post and I'm hoping to get advice from those who had a complete career change and decided to go to vet school. I have been trying to read through this forum as much as I can. I'm still a little concerned about making a complete career change because unlike others, my undergraduate studies and jobs had absolutely nothing to do with animals or even slightly relative to any science field.

A long post so thank you for reading to the end

I’m in my early 30s. In high school, I took almost all the science AP exams (4 or 5 scores), knowing that I did NOT want to study or take any science course in college. Also had very decent GPA and SAT scores. I went on to a pretty good university, double majoring in 2 non-science majors. Took no science courses except for an intro physics class as part of GE.

Fast forward, I currently work in executive management. It's a good pay and I am overall OK with it. However, about 3 years ago I started volunteering at an animal shelter (doing various things like husbandry, socialization, adoptions). Mostly with cats but also sometimes with dogs, birds, and rabbits. There's actually a wildlife dept. but I never volunteered there. And I'm also the proud parent to my 2 cats.

I have since considered a career change and appling to veterinarian school (I know. A huge jump). Of course not now but I want to give it a try in 2 years or so while I take pre-req science courses at a CC and getting my experience hours. I have also talked to my family about this; they are willing to support me financially if needed. If I do this according to plan, it's going to be one of the biggest decisions I've ever had to make. So I'm hoping to get some good advice from people who had or is going through something similar.

1. I don't want to quite my job (at least not for now). I see that many either work full time or part time as veterinarian assistant or in a field/job that involves animals. For now, I still want to keep my full time job both for financial reasons and for the fact that if I switch to a completely different career path, there's more uncertainly just in case if vet school doesn't work out for me. Then I will need to go back to the job market and explain why there's a few years gap between me leaving a c-level management job and working at a non-management position with animals. Has anyone tried to keep a regular job while also work part-time and volunteer as well as taking on college courses? How many part-time/volunteer hours were/are you doing (while maintaining a full time job)? How was/is your experience with doing all these things simultaneously?

2. Right now I volunteer for about 5-10 hrs each week at the animal shelter. I’ve been doing this for a while and accumulated a few hundreds of hours (all animal experience. No veterinarian experience). Since I have a full time job (some flexibility. Can usually leave early), any part time job/volunteer/classes has to be either in late afternoon/night or on weekends. I do want to continue volunteering at this shelter as I loved my experience here and also want to try my hands in wildlife and other areas. However, I do need to start getting some veterinarian experience. For anyone who had or is doing something like this, what are some places that you can recommend to rack up veterinarian experience during non-business hours (ie: after-work, night, weekend)?

3. I looked at different vet schools. I still need to do more research but since I’m a CA resident, my top choice would be UCD. I do not have any of the science course req. for vet schools. I’m also shameful to admit that I did not maintain a stellar GPA in college (graduated a few years ago). Not because I couldn’t handle it but simply because I slacked off. I had great high school GPA and science AP scores so I think with some hard work, I can still do it. I plan to take science courses at CC to boost my science and last 45 GPA while also to prove to myself that I can actually handle vet school curriculum. For anyone with similar experience or is going through something similar, how was/is your experience taking on college classes while maintaining a full time job and other part time and volunteer obligations? Did you try to spread out your course work to allow yourself time for other things? Or do you recommend to not have other part-time/volunteer jobs while you take college classes? I’m trying to see if I should take some classes first before spreading myself too thin with other jobs or volunteer hours.

4. With 2-3 years of preparation, I’m hoping to apply to vet school in my mid 30s. Do you think this is still feasible? I understand that maintaining a not relative full time job will “delay” my preparation time vs. leaving my job and "doing" this full time. I would like to hear from people on both sides. Did you prepare for vet schools as a “side job” or weekend thing or did you switch to an animal related field and dedicated most of your time in preparation for the vet school application?

5. I have recently joined a friend of mine in doing TNR work. Our plan is to “create” our own after work/weekend rescue (we both have full time jobs). For now, it’s more like a “hobby” because it’s something that we are both passionate about. Is this something “worth” spending a lot of hours on? I already accumulated a lot of hours for animal experience from volunteering at the shelter. I understand that it may be good that I volunteer with different types of animals. But among the same kind of animals, will vet schools want to see more “varieties” of experiences (not that TNR and post-op care are significantly different from what we do at the shelter but I thought may be it’s better to have 1000 hrs of different jobs vs. 1000 hrs of just cleaning kennels)? If not preferred, I’d like to limit the amount of time I spend on this because although I love doing it, I may be trying to take on too many tasks while also covering everything else.

This is not an impulse decision. I started thinking about going to vet school last year and after months of consideration, I decided to actually do it. I’ve already registered for a class at CC and I’m hoping to see if I can shadow at one of my local animal hospitals. I would love to hear from anyone who was or is in the same/similar boat as I do. Any advice or suggestion is greatly appreciated and thanks everyone for being this patient for my long post.

 

[VetMed812]

Hi everyone, this is my 1st post and I'm hoping to get advice from those who had a complete career change and decided to go to vet school. I have been trying to read through this forum as much as I can. I'm still a little concerned about making a complete career change because unlike others, my undergraduate studies and jobs had absolutely nothing to do with animals or even slightly relative to any science field.

A long post so thank you for reading to the end

I’m in my early 30s. In high school, I took almost all the science AP exams (4 or 5 scores), knowing that I did NOT want to study or take any science course in college. Also had very decent GPA and SAT scores. I went on to a pretty good university, double majoring in 2 non-science majors. Took no science courses except for an intro physics class as part of GE.

Fast forward, I currently work in executive management. It's a good pay and I am overall OK with it. However, about 3 years ago I started volunteering at an animal shelter (doing various things like husbandry, socialization, adoptions). Mostly with cats but also sometimes with dogs, birds, and rabbits. There's actually a wildlife dept. but I never volunteered there. And I'm also the proud parent to my 2 cats.

I have since considered a career change and appling to veterinarian school (I know. A huge jump). Of course not now but I want to give it a try in 2 years or so while I take pre-req science courses at a CC and getting my experience hours. I have also talked to my family about this; they are willing to support me financially if needed. If I do this according to plan, it's going to be one of the biggest decisions I've ever had to make. So I'm hoping to get some good advice from people who had or is going through something similar.

1. I don't want to quite my job (at least not for now). I see that many either work full time or part time as veterinarian assistant or in a field/job that involves animals. For now, I still want to keep my full time job both for financial reasons and for the fact that if I switch to a completely different career path, there's more uncertainly just in case if vet school doesn't work out for me. Then I will need to go back to the job market and explain why there's a few years gap between me leaving a c-level management job and working at a non-management position with animals. Has anyone tried to keep a regular job while also work part-time and volunteer as well as taking on college courses? How many part-time/volunteer hours were/are you doing (while maintaining a full time job)? How was/is your experience with doing all these things simultaneously?

2. Right now I volunteer for about 5-10 hrs each week at the animal shelter. I’ve been doing this for a while and accumulated a few hundreds of hours (all animal experience. No veterinarian experience). Since I have a full time job (some flexibility. Can usually leave early), any part time job/volunteer/classes has to be either in late afternoon/night or on weekends. I do want to continue volunteering at this shelter as I loved my experience here and also want to try my hands in wildlife and other areas. However, I do need to start getting some veterinarian experience. For anyone who had or is doing something like this, what are some places that you can recommend to rack up veterinarian experience during non-business hours (ie: after-work, night, weekend)?

3. I looked at different vet schools. I still need to do more research but since I’m a CA resident, my top choice would be UCD. I do not have any of the science course req. for vet schools. I’m also shameful to admit that I did not maintain a stellar GPA in college (graduated a few years ago). Not because I couldn’t handle it but simply because I slacked off. I had great high school GPA and science AP scores so I think with some hard work, I can still do it. I plan to take science courses at CC to boost my science and last 45 GPA while also to prove to myself that I can actually handle vet school curriculum. For anyone with similar experience or is going through something similar, how was/is your experience taking on college classes while maintaining a full time job and other part time and volunteer obligations? Did you try to spread out your course work to allow yourself time for other things? Or do you recommend to not have other part-time/volunteer jobs while you take college classes? I’m trying to see if I should take some classes first before spreading myself too thin with other jobs or volunteer hours.

4. With 2-3 years of preparation, I’m hoping to apply to vet school in my mid 30s. Do you think this is still feasible? I understand that maintaining a not relative full time job will “delay” my preparation time vs. leaving my job and "doing" this full time. I would like to hear from people on both sides. Did you prepare for vet schools as a “side job” or weekend thing or did you switch to an animal related field and dedicated most of your time in preparation for the vet school application?

5. I have recently joined a friend of mine in doing TNR work. Our plan is to “create” our own after work/weekend rescue (we both have full time jobs). For now, it’s more like a “hobby” because it’s something that we are both passionate about. Is this something “worth” spending a lot of hours on? I already accumulated a lot of hours for animal experience from volunteering at the shelter. I understand that it may be good that I volunteer with different types of animals. But among the same kind of animals, will vet schools want to see more “varieties” of experiences (not that TNR and post-op care are significantly different from what we do at the shelter but I thought may be it’s better to have 1000 hrs of different jobs vs. 1000 hrs of just cleaning kennels)? If not preferred, I’d like to limit the amount of time I spend on this because although I love doing it, I may be trying to take on too many tasks while also covering everything else.

This is not an impulse decision. I started thinking about going to vet school last year and after months of consideration, I decided to actually do it. I’ve already registered for a class at CC and I’m hoping to see if I can shadow at one of my local animal hospitals. I would love to hear from anyone who was or is in the same/similar boat as I do. Any advice or suggestion is greatly appreciated and thanks everyone for being this patient for my long post.

only do what you can handle and will develop your career professionally not just what will get you into vet school.

 

[LetItSnow]

Long reply incoming from a grumpy 40-something.

Also, paging Dr. @LetItSnow

*snort* *grumble* *shakes head* *spills half-empty 6th bottle of beer*

What? Why you buggin' me TRH? I'm not on shift until tomorrow night.

I'm on board with what TRH said. Get some experience in a hospital of the type you eventually see yourself being in, and then decide if you want to do it. Until you do that everything is just speculation. With that said ...

I’m in my early 30s.

For reference, I was, uh, 40 (?) when I started vet school. Maybe 41. 42? I'm kinda losing track.

Fast forward, I currently work in executive management. It's a good pay and I am overall OK with it. However, about 3 years ago I started volunteering at an animal shelter (doing various things like husbandry, socialization, adoptions). Mostly with cats but also sometimes with dogs, birds, and rabbits. There's actually a wildlife dept. but I never volunteered there. And I'm also the proud parent to my 2 cats.

Yer an owner of 2 cats, not a parent. Kids have parents. Pets have owners. Pets have parents, too, but they are called bitches and queens and mares and things like that. They aren't called people.

I worked in systems and network engineering, with an emphasis of working on security-related projects, for a large TelCo before I made the switch. Completely unrelated to VetMed. It gave me certain skills that many vet students lacked. You can use your background (hell, a management background is SUPER in today's vet world) - it definitely isn't a drawback.

Has anyone tried to keep a regular job while also work part-time and volunteer as well as taking on college courses? How many part-time/volunteer hours were/are you doing (while maintaining a full time job)? How was/is your experience with doing all these things simultaneously?

I kept my regular (full-time) job while having our first two kids (ok, my wife did the 'having' part), building up experience, and getting my undergrad degree / doing pre-reqs. So yeah, it's doable. But that said, my job was incredibly flexible. I could work from home ... I could work evenings or weekends ... nobody at work really cared if I was gone for a few mornings or afternoons a week as long as my projects were on track and I was checking in regularly and, yanno, actually Doing Work. I imagine that if your job requires very specific hours (esp full time) it would be much harder. But I was able to do things like blitz out of work at 2pm to go to class, I took one morning off per week to volunteer in canine rehab at our vet school's teaching hospital, I took another morning off per week to hang out in a SA GP hospital ... etc. Honestly, it was hell trying to manage all that. But you just take it one week at a time, stay flexible, and deal with it and remind yourself an infinite number of times that it's only for a season and there's a bigger goal at the end.

, what are some places that you can recommend to rack up veterinarian experience during non-business hours (ie: after-work, night, weekend)?

I see someone recommended an ER hospital. I get 'why', and it's super that it worked for them, but don't be disappointed if many ERs say "uh, no thx." We wouldn't even DREAM of letting someone into our ER hospital - there's too much stuff happening, too much expensive equipment (hell, we have an MRI in the building), too many ways that person could get hurt, too many really sick/critical animals .... it's just not appropriate. We don't HAVE 'kennel' staff or 'veterinary assistants'. If you're in the back room you're a CVT or a DVM. Period. Some ERs - especially those that maybe aren't so busy - probably have kennel staff or vet assistants and may be open to volunteers. We don't even let people shadow (prior to vet school), much less volunteer (the soonest we let people in is when they are vet students).

I don't really think it matters where you get experience. Lots of GPs are open on weekends and may let you in the door. Calling ERs is a good idea (just with the caveat above). Shelters can be good places - some of them have vets on staff so you can get veterinary experience. But in general, I think you may have to find creative ways to gain experience during the week rather than non-business hours. That's what I had to do, for the most part.

how was/is your experience taking on college classes while maintaining a full time job and other part time and volunteer obligations? Did you try to spread out your course work to allow yourself time for other things? Or do you recommend to not have other part-time/volunteer jobs while you take college classes? I’m trying to see if I should take some classes first before spreading myself too thin with other jobs or volunteer hours.

My experience was that it sucked in ways that make me chuckle and laugh when I see a 20-yr-old complaining about how oh-so-hard college is when they're doing it with someone else paying and not having to work a job and not having kids to deal with.

No way around it. It's tough. But you can do it.

I don't think there's a right answer to your last question - in the end, you need to get pre-reqs and you need to get experience. I personally think it's better to do a little of both at the same time rather than all of one then all of the other, but ... hey, whatever. You gotta do what you can. I did both at the same time.

4. With 2-3 years of preparation, I’m hoping to apply to vet school in my mid 30s. Do you think this is still feasible? I understand that maintaining a not relative full time job will “delay” my preparation time vs. leaving my job and "doing" this full time. I would like to hear from people on both sides. Did you prepare for vet schools as a “side job” or weekend thing or did you switch to an animal related field and dedicated most of your time in preparation for the vet school application?

Sure it's feasible. I did it as a 'side job' and it took me years. Plus side is I kept making lots of money during that time and I was able to go off to vet school and have no income for four years and still support my family of 5 without any other income. The big con, of course, is you're that much later getting your degree and getting out into practice. And that puts a LOT of financial pressure on you. I currently work in ER medicine and while I like ER medicine the quality of life is highly questionable ... but it's also difficult to give up my $140+k/yr to go into a $70-$85k/yr GP job.

I keep trying to encourage my wife to get a really high-paying job, but no luck so far.

5. I have recently joined a friend of mine in doing TNR work. Our plan is to “create” our own after work/weekend rescue (we both have full time jobs). For now, it’s more like a “hobby” because it’s something that we are both passionate about. Is this something “worth” spending a lot of hours on? I already accumulated a lot of hours for animal experience from volunteering at the shelter. I understand that it may be good that I volunteer with different types of animals. But among the same kind of animals, will vet schools want to see more “varieties” of experiences (not that TNR and post-op care are significantly different from what we do at the shelter but I thought may be it’s better to have 1000 hrs of different jobs vs. 1000 hrs of just cleaning kennels)? If not preferred, I’d like to limit the amount of time I spend on this because although I love doing it, I may be trying to take on too many tasks while also covering everything else.

Vet schools like to see variety, yes. But they also like to see initiative, leadership, and follow-through. It's impressive to see someone 'see' a goal, figure out how to accomplish it, do it, and accomplish it in spite of setbacks. I've been an interviewer for vet school, and that sort of thing means a LOT.

Thing about rules is that there are always exceptions. Yes, vet schools love variety of experience. But it's also important to have a trajectory. If you say you want to work with small animals ... the majority of your experience should be there and you should be able to talk about your reasons and your goals. To the degree you've "done things" to support what you say you want to do, it will help you.

I had one week of shadowing an equine doc. Two *days* of shadowing a cow doc. The rest of my veterinary experience was small animal in one way or another. (I did have animal experience - non-veterinary - working a dairy farm growing up and a couple years volunteering in wildlife rehab, which was a Fri-evening thing for me while I did pre-reqs 'n stuff.)

Look.

The most important pieces of advice I have to give are these:

1) Make SURE you want to do this. Don't just 'envision' what you think it will be like, because you're probably wrong. Talk to people who ARE DOING what you want to do. Ask about their quality of life, their income, their stresses, their rewards. Make sure you're up for it, because VetMed has some serious industry challenges right now in terms of quality of life and income.

2) Don't worry about finding the perfect path there. You know you need experience, you know you need to do the pre-reqs - just chip away as the opportunities exist and realize that it's a long game. If opportunities are proving slim, make them by talking to EVERYONE and not being shy about asking for help. My biggest pile of experience hours came because a study partner while I was doing pre-reqs happened to be married to someone who had a relative who was a vet. My study partner called the vet, said "Hey, can LIS come shadow?" Next thing you know I've spent several hundred hours there, they wrote me an awesome LOR, and they've tried for two years now to hire me on with an intent to buy into the practice. I stumbled onto a friendship with @dyachei , a fellow SDNer, and she very, very graciously hosted me for a 4th-yr externship at the hospital she owns, and we've had a number of discussions about the possibility of practicing together. You just never know what connections are going to lead to opportunities.

3) Celebrate your progress. You HAVE to take the time to acknowledge your progress and celebrate. I had a spreadsheet of every pre-req. All the boxes were red at the beginning. As I finished each class, I switched them to green. And I'd do something to celebrate - bought myself a gift, went out with the wife to some special place, whatever. You will go nuts if all you do is look to the 'end' and forget to celebrate along the way (because the secret is that there is no end). Every step seems hard - getting the classes done, getting the experience, applying and getting accepted, your first year stress of passing anatomy and getting used to the incredible load of school, then rotations, then boards, then starting practice .... it's a never-ending path with new stresses at every turn. So celebrate on the way.

4) Don't let setbacks stop you. You might have to take an extra year because some pre-req isn't available. You might not get accepted to vet school the first go-around. So what? Just keep kicking life right back in the crotch and keep going. You will overcome obstacles and succeed.

G'luck! If you have other specific questions, feel free to tag me or PM me.

LIS out.

 

[Doctor-S]

I have a question regarding shadowing at an animal hospital or emergency hospital. Do you just go in with your resume and ask if there's any open position for volunteers or shadow?? Even if I have no previous hospital or veterinarian experience? My volunteer work at the animal shelter is not in the clinic and also does not involve any veterinarian. My work is mostly on the behavior side, plus some adoptions and husbandry. Do animal hospitals or clinics usually have potential vet school applicants shadow or volunteer? Is there any thing I should do first to boost my chance of actually getting any shadow work? Again, I am very new to the whole veterinarian experience thing. I'm just imaging that if someone comes to our company and ask to shadow (with no pay), I would reject them if they have absolutely no experience in our industry.

@CatLady17 ... although I am in human medicine, I am also conducting clinical research on the side related to felids. If you live near me in California, I can provide you with contact information to some veterinary hospitals that provide "veterinarian supervised" shadowing experience to pre-vet med students. These include SA and exotics veterinarians. Please feel free to PM me if interested in further details.

 

[mht2k3]

Everyone else has basically already answered your questions, but I figured I'd respond anyways. Also a nontraditional student who was working full-time (and starting a family) while trying to do all the postbac/shadowing/applying.

Has anyone tried to keep a regular job while also work part-time and volunteer as well as taking on college courses? How many part-time/volunteer hours were/are you doing (while maintaining a full time job)? How was/is your experience with doing all these things simultaneously?

I worked full-time throughout this whole process. I basically took a lot of my vacation time from work and put it towards shadowing. I also was able to negotiate with work in order to do 4-10 hour days and I shadowed a vet on the other weekday that I had free. My job was also pretty cool with me being gone during the day at various times so I could be in class as long as I worked my hours (I feel like this is somewhat abnormal/lucky situation so might not apply to you). This was only in the summers, or on school breaks since when I was in school there was no time left to shadow in my case.

what are some places that you can recommend to rack up veterinarian experience during non-business hours (ie: after-work, night, weekend)?

I dont really have that much experience with this since most of my hours came from shadowing a large animal vet during normal business hours. I was able to find a small animal clinic in my area that was open on saturdays so I shadowed them for a while, but Coopah's suggestion of finding an emergency clinic might be the best thing to do.

how was/is your experience taking on college classes while maintaining a full time job and other part time and volunteer obligations? Did you try to spread out your course work to allow yourself time for other things? Or do you recommend to not have other part-time/volunteer jobs while you take college classes?

When I was actually taking classes and working full-time I really didn't have any other time to do anything. I averaged about 2 classes/labs a semester. I was also starting a family so I didn't really have the opportunity to be gone more than I was from home. Your case might be different, but if I were you I would focus on getting straight As and racking up veterinary hours. non-vet volunteer stuff is great but if its going to impact either of the other two things I'd be worried.

With 2-3 years of preparation, I’m hoping to apply to vet school in my mid 30s. Do you think this is still feasible? I understand that maintaining a not relative full time job will “delay” my preparation time vs. leaving my job and "doing" this full time. I would like to hear from people on both sides. Did you prepare for vet schools as a “side job” or weekend thing or did you switch to an animal related field and dedicated most of your time in preparation for the vet school application?

I worked as a software developer and tried to do all this stuff in my "free" time. tbh it wasn't really a side job as I was probably putting more than 40 hours a week into school/shadowing/etc on top of my 40 hour regular job.

With all that said, its totally doable. Its going to take A LOT of work and discipline to succeed, but there are a lot of us who have been in your situation and have been accepted to vet school. I kind of like to look at it as just preparation for the total crazy workload of vet school. I know vet school will be insane, but at least I wont have to work a full-time job while I'm doing it?

 

[Posey]

I am a few years older than you (late 30s) so was around your age when I began my career change five years ago.

As others have said, you need to shadow or work for a veterinarian to really get a feel for the job. Are you able to shadow a shelter veterinarian or work at low cost vaccine clinics on the weekends? Not sure if either of those are options in your area. They seem to be weekend options where I'm from.

Agree with most of what the others said, except when it comes to working and prepping. Due to the job I had and course availability, it was extremely challenging to work full time. The unis in my area do not offer enough sciences after work hours; so, I made an arrangement with my employer to leave during the day, arrive late, etc in order to attend class. The work/ school arrangement lasted one year, but it was not sustainable long term. Aside from the challenges with not always being available for meetings or to answer questions during business hours, I was not able to take a full course load while working that job. So, I left my job, went to school full-time, and found a part-time job at a clinic.

Now that I'm in veterinary school, I do not work during the school year. It can be really tempting on a tough day to consider quitting school and going back to my old, stable, decent paying career, especially when I think about the student loan debt. I find it difficult to have gone from being financially stable to living on such a tight budget and having no income. So far, remembering it is temporary and envisioning the end result keeps me going on this path. I don't say this to discourage you; there are plenty of days when I don't question the career change. It's just a mental struggle I wish someone had warned me about.

Best of luck!