Best Advice Essay Contest Winner

Earlier this year SAVMA's Education and Professional Development Committee held a contest where you sent in the best advice you have received on how to get through vet school. Below we have the entry by the winner of the contest. Just remember the advice she received as the first round of spring midterms comes around the corner.

"Your Career is Not Your Life"

By: Heather Burrowes

Cornell University, Class of 2012

I clearly remember that summer before my senior year of college—peak vet school application season. I was working in overdrive, trying desperately to impress admissions committees in the final stretch before applications were due. By day I spent hours writing essays and collecting transcripts; by night I immersed myself in veterinary life, moonlighting as an assistant at a nearby emergency clinic. I was convinced that there was some magic formula to get into vet school and I was going to ensure that every variable reached its maximum potential before plugging it in to the great VMCAS application machine.

Weeks went by and I finally got around to requesting the all-important Letters of Recommendation from assorted doctors and professors. Signed, sealed and shipped off to the appropriate address, most of the letters were fairly straightforward, except for one.

It was another night shift at the emergency clinic and Dr. Mary Ellen McLoughlin was next on the list for a letter request. She had always been supportive—when a dog came in crashing at 2am with only three people on staff and the one thing I forgot to bring to work that night was confidence, she had faith in me. Her letter was, in my eyes, a necessity. But she wasn’t going to make things easy.

“All right, in order to write you a letter, you have to answer one question for me. What do you want to do after vet school?”

“Oh, well, definitely small animal, I think maybe emergency medicine or practice ownership…”

She nodded slowly, considering this. Then, she looked me squarely in the eyes.

“What do you want to do after vet school?”

I stared back, dumbfounded.

“I… uh… Well… I’m not sure, really. I like horses. I’ve always wanted to learn to ride. Maybe I could do that.”

“Good. You should. Never forget that your career isn’t the same as your life. You have to find something outside of work that keeps you going otherwise… you know… it’s hard to say that this is all worth it.”

And she wrote my letter.

For years, my dream was very simple: “get into vet school.” That night was the first time I ever allowed myself to dream past that point—when I realized that my goal wasn’t an endpoint, but a beginning. And the closer I get to finally earning that degree, the more Dr. McLoughlin’s advice rings in my ear. I am a part of an amazing field that is incredibly rich and fulfilling in a lot of ways… but as much as it can feel all-consuming during vet school, it’s not my whole life. I am a veterinarian… and a gardener, a birder, a sister, a friend.