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Thoughts, mostly for myself, but feel free to read 'em if you feel like it.
Difficulty
I have now heard from multiple sources that getting into a veterinary medicine program is harder than getting into (human-) med school. I don't know whether it "needs to be" harder in order to screen for the difficulty of the schooling itself, but there are certainly fewer schools available and fewer seats available. Yikes. I honestly am not sure I'm up for that level of challenge. Hell, I thought a lot of myself when I was coming out of high school and I was intimidated by it back then!
O'course, multiple sources could still be wrong. And it's possible that my utterly appalling undergraduate grades would mean a lot less now than they would have meant in 1989. I will work like crazy to kick some serious butt on the entrance exams (GRE, MCAT, whatever, I'll do what needs doing) and I will work like crazy to get good grades in the preparatory undergraduate courses I know I need.
I suspect once I'm in I'll be okay. I may not graduate top in my class; I'm not twenty, I'm not perfectly healthy, I've already pulled all the all-nighters I want to pull in this lifetime, I may have a significant commute to and from school, and I don't have somebody else footing the bill. But I won't be last in my class either. If I get in, I believe I can become a good AND competent veterinarian. I'm also ethical enough that if I can't become competent I'll stop. But that first step is a doozy.
Squeamishness
Long-time readers, remember that bit about passing out when giving blood? That bit about feeling woozy when my doctor described the laparoscopic surgery I was going to get? That bit about having to go lie down when watching my cat get subcutaneous fluids? Um. As an employee evaluation might put it, "this area needs work."
On the other hand, many people have assured me that this is the kind of thing that can be overcome. My gynecologist, who is also a surgeon, assures me he used to get woozy. My aunt Helen, a registered nurse, passed out cold at the first surgery she attended. (Hit her head hard if I remember the story right. Nobody was watching the students; they were quite rightly watching the surgeon and his patient.) These people went on to have long and fine careers in medicine. It can be done.
On the other other hand I don't exactly look forward to it.
Commitment
When people ask me about my desire to do this, the best answer I can give them is that it's obvious this is what I should have done the first time around.
Perhaps that means I owe it to myself to try. BUT.
Rob and I, as a couple, come first.
I can't guarantee I'll get into any of my top few choices of schools. ANY school I attend will mean selling the house, moving, Rob drastically changing or even dumping his flight instructor career and improvising some way he can make money in aviation or out of it, and years of me pulling eighty-hour weeks and stressing out a lot. He's said he'll be supportive of whichever decision I make, but I must also in good conscience take a look at what that will cost him. If it costs us each other, directly or indirectly, that's too high a price. If managed badly, I know that that could indeed be the price. Caution required.
I also won't be able to keep going with the high-tech career for very much longer if I head down this path. A year, sure; I'll be studying, taking a class or two, volunteering. More than two years... very unlikely. I'll be in classes AND studying for the entrance exams AND working at a clinic (if I can) AND trying to figure out in which state I'll need to establish residency, and maybe even going there while Rob sells the house. So my current career will get ditched early in the process, long before I know I'll succeed on the new path. It could get picked up again, although re-buying the house (if already sold) would be a bit of a toughie.
It all kind of feels like a leap off a cliff.
On the other hand, damn if it isn't exciting. Rob, I'm sorry, I really am.
*sigh*
So far I'm giving it somewhere around a 35% chance I'll make the leap. That's probably higher than it's been before.
Difficulty
I have now heard from multiple sources that getting into a veterinary medicine program is harder than getting into (human-) med school. I don't know whether it "needs to be" harder in order to screen for the difficulty of the schooling itself, but there are certainly fewer schools available and fewer seats available. Yikes. I honestly am not sure I'm up for that level of challenge. Hell, I thought a lot of myself when I was coming out of high school and I was intimidated by it back then!
O'course, multiple sources could still be wrong. And it's possible that my utterly appalling undergraduate grades would mean a lot less now than they would have meant in 1989. I will work like crazy to kick some serious butt on the entrance exams (GRE, MCAT, whatever, I'll do what needs doing) and I will work like crazy to get good grades in the preparatory undergraduate courses I know I need.
I suspect once I'm in I'll be okay. I may not graduate top in my class; I'm not twenty, I'm not perfectly healthy, I've already pulled all the all-nighters I want to pull in this lifetime, I may have a significant commute to and from school, and I don't have somebody else footing the bill. But I won't be last in my class either. If I get in, I believe I can become a good AND competent veterinarian. I'm also ethical enough that if I can't become competent I'll stop. But that first step is a doozy.
Squeamishness
Long-time readers, remember that bit about passing out when giving blood? That bit about feeling woozy when my doctor described the laparoscopic surgery I was going to get? That bit about having to go lie down when watching my cat get subcutaneous fluids? Um. As an employee evaluation might put it, "this area needs work."
On the other hand, many people have assured me that this is the kind of thing that can be overcome. My gynecologist, who is also a surgeon, assures me he used to get woozy. My aunt Helen, a registered nurse, passed out cold at the first surgery she attended. (Hit her head hard if I remember the story right. Nobody was watching the students; they were quite rightly watching the surgeon and his patient.) These people went on to have long and fine careers in medicine. It can be done.
On the other other hand I don't exactly look forward to it.
Commitment
When people ask me about my desire to do this, the best answer I can give them is that it's obvious this is what I should have done the first time around.
Perhaps that means I owe it to myself to try. BUT.
Rob and I, as a couple, come first.
I can't guarantee I'll get into any of my top few choices of schools. ANY school I attend will mean selling the house, moving, Rob drastically changing or even dumping his flight instructor career and improvising some way he can make money in aviation or out of it, and years of me pulling eighty-hour weeks and stressing out a lot. He's said he'll be supportive of whichever decision I make, but I must also in good conscience take a look at what that will cost him. If it costs us each other, directly or indirectly, that's too high a price. If managed badly, I know that that could indeed be the price. Caution required.
I also won't be able to keep going with the high-tech career for very much longer if I head down this path. A year, sure; I'll be studying, taking a class or two, volunteering. More than two years... very unlikely. I'll be in classes AND studying for the entrance exams AND working at a clinic (if I can) AND trying to figure out in which state I'll need to establish residency, and maybe even going there while Rob sells the house. So my current career will get ditched early in the process, long before I know I'll succeed on the new path. It could get picked up again, although re-buying the house (if already sold) would be a bit of a toughie.
It all kind of feels like a leap off a cliff.
On the other hand, damn if it isn't exciting. Rob, I'm sorry, I really am.
*sigh*
So far I'm giving it somewhere around a 35% chance I'll make the leap. That's probably higher than it's been before.
no subject
Yes, it was rather like leaping off a cliff. I took a couple of years worth of courses at the local community college to fill in gaps that I had in the undergrad degree including things like intro to Chem and Physics and basic Calculus. I knew at the time I wanted to take a masters program but I didn't know whether I wanted to do this in Environmenatal Science or in Education. Where I wanted to end up was as an environmental educator. In the end I opted for education because this gives me a certification to teach middle school science if I am not able to get into the field of environmental education with parks, museums or nature centers and I would rather be teaching than doing field biology.
Unlike you, I had no savings and so part of the leap off the cliff included taking on a rather large debt load in the form of student loans. At the moment I am working as an intern through the Student Conservation Association as an Environmental Educator at a National Wildlife Refuge.
I am incredibly glad that I took that leap even in the dark, cold hours of the night when I am scared to death that I will not be able to pay my loans back and that I will be paying them off on Social Security. (I turn 51 this Nov.) The thing came down to could I stand to do this (the state) job for another 13 years until I had reached retirement and then do the EE thing as a part of retirement and I came up with the answer as a rather emphatic NO.
Now, education is a much easier thing to get into than Vet school so it did not have the high levels of uncertainty that your cliff has with respect to actually being allowed to take the path once one tries to jump for it but from one who lept, I think that it is worth the leap. My apologies for abusing the metaphor.
no subject
(As for my levels of uncertainty, at least I get to find out close to the beginning of the journey rather than after I've spent all the time and money on education! That's a bit of luck, there.)