Hello everyone and welcome back to Set Files Today.
Today we are joined by Jet Rush, graduate of East Texas A&M and
we're so happy to have you. He is also a first year
veterinary student at the University of Missouri College
of Veterinary Medicine. And today we are talking about
our journey to veterinary medicine and also how to deal
with rejection, gap years and acceptances.
Thanks so much, Jeff, for joining us.
Oh, I'm happy to be here. Yes, and we also sent out a
Google form to, you know, I sent it to some LSU students.
It was posted in the APB May chat on Facebook.
So we have some responses about other people's experiences, some
generic questions like majors and what they did during their
gap years, but also some, you know, handwritten responses.
So thank you to everybody who responded to that.
There's some really valuable information in here, and I wish
we had enough time to go through all of it, but I kind of gave a
synopsis here at the end, and we might bring it up throughout the
chat today. So if it comes up, that's what
I'm referring to, or we might do a little run through it at the
end. Yeah.
So, Jet, do you want to tell us a little bit about your full
journey from undergrad or high school through now?
Yeah, so definitely, Oh, I am originally from Grand Prairie,
TX. I went to South Pink Prairie
High School where I was the leader of our vet tech program.
Just let me go do many cool things.
I even got to go to Washington, DC to talk about to keep
technical programs in high school.
I got to meet my Texas governor, Ted Cruz there.
Then from there I went off to the Texas East, Texas A&M
University, where I was in a couple of I was in a fraternity.
I was in some honor societies. I was biology major.
And then I also about my junior year, they added a tech program.
So I joined some of that there. And then I just worked.
I worked. I've worked full time as a
technician all through undergrad, paid through all my
undergrad while working. And yeah, it took me about four
attempts to get into that school.
You know, I don't really count the first one because it was
like kind of my junior year one. But you know, it's still, it
still counts as a application. And, you know, it was, it was
about two years after I graduated from college, just
when I got in. And that school's been amazing
since. I've had a wonderful time, a lot
of studying, a lot of tearship, a lot of smiles too.
I always say Jet and I are like the only ones in the anatomy lab
constantly and the bags of our eyes completely grow constantly.
Yep, Yep, it's it. I'll always catch Gretel there
in the morning. Yes, well I do overnights for
full team and. Jeff does overnights.
In the hospital, so we probably have some of the least amount of
sleep in the school. Yeah, I think that's about
right. Especially like every time I
close. Yeah, and a lot of this stuff
that y'all are doing, I don't know about you Jet, but it I
believe the full team is unpaid. Like that's just for fun, right?
Oh, no, I, no, no, no. I work for money.
I I work receptionist at the at the emergency hospital.
Exactly. One thing I was just going to
bring up is that a lot of people, I don't want to say a
lot, but a couple of people that had responded did say, oh, I
wish I saved more money. There's never, it's always great
to have more money. It wasn't that anybody said it
was a huge deal, but it was like some more money would have been
nice. And I've definitely been facing
that like my personal finances. And I mean, I have a job as a
student Rep for Hills, so I get paid through that.
And then I'm also gonna be working as an emergency
receptionist. So it's like.
Best place to study? It makes you stare a computer
for hours so you have to. If I'm not checking a client,
handling a call or anything, I just have to quiz lit up or a
PowerPoint going. I'm hoping it'll give me a
little bit of time throughout, but it's also emergency so if
not I get it. Yeah, yeah, no, you're going to
have those nights where you're going to be up all night.
So you said it took you 4 cycles including that junior year
cycle. What did the years between the
application cycles look like for you?
So it was really interesting because you know, you usually
find out about I guess like February, March, every school's
kind of different, like Texas is a little different because
they're not with them cast. They have their own system yet
to apply it through. So it's really about when you
hear from them, you know, in between those gap year or those
gap years was just usually me working a whole bunch, getting
as much experience as I can. I was in charge of my pharmacy
at my old clinic, worked seven days a week just because I was
the everyday guy. And you know, it was just a lot
of like trying to find ways to improve myself with the
resources I had on me at the time, but like taking more tech
classes for my second attempt or taking harder, you know, biology
classes that will pertain to the vet field.
So many things, just looking to improve is what I mainly did
during those times. Did you ever feel like something
to do with your background? There were gaps in what you
needed to fulfill for veterinary medicine.
Definitely, definitely. I always try to hit every box
that you know, they always look for in like applicants like
research, good grades, being leaders and stuff.
Honestly, what I was missing the most was because I think that
because my second attempt really was kind of like the quickest
rejection I ever got. Like at least my first attempt I
had. I was an alternate for interview
for Kansas, at least there. But my second attempt, I applied
to a whole bunch of schools and just got outright rejected.
And it was, it was interesting because they always tell you
something different. Like LSU.
I remember when I played with them, they had an interesting
thing saying like, you know, I didn't have some, I didn't have
proper capitalization when I typed in some classes, when I
would just copy and paste them from my undergrad thing.
And they look at those things. They look at every little
detail. Wow.
With Texas Tech, who's primarily trying to focus on large
animals, like, hey, you know, love your application, but you
have less than 100 hours of horses alone, you know, you
know, it's kind of hard. You know, every school is going
to be focusing on something different.
You know, you just have to find what that school is and improve
upon it from there. I think that's a good point.
Every school is looking for something different.
And I thought something that I really struggled with because I
applied to 12 and got into three schools, but my acceptances
weren't until way later in the cycle.
They were, you know, more of the last people that I heard from.
And so I'm also from Texas. And so I applied to Texas AM and
Texas Tech. Thank you.
Yeah. Yeah.
I was thinking, hey, I check all their boxes, right.
I grew up on a farm. I have large animal and
production experience. I'm from West, TX for Texas Tech
specifically. I want to go back to West TX
rural, specifically large animal, animal.
And I was like, I'm checking all the boxes.
Heck yeah. And so to get those first two
denials, Texas Tech and Texas A&M, back-to-back denials, my
first people I heard back from, I literally felt like my dreams
were crushed. I said if I didn't get into
those two schools that I thought that I was the best applicant
for, where the hell am I going to get into because.
Exactly. It's not there then where, but
obviously that didn't happen. So I don't know.
I mean, what does it feel like to kind of go through that
multiple years in a row? I was lucky enough to get in a
couple other schools later, but. Yeah, definitely.
Yeah. So actually I wrote this down
South. Like, you know, like I said, my
first attempt didn't really hurt my feelings too bad.
You know, junior year, Damon really had all the classes.
I was still finishing them, got rejected real quick.
Second year, you know, going to my senior year, didn't have my
full science GPA finished out. I had a lot of my like 400 level
classes in there still left to take.
So it wasn't to, I mean, I was disappointed, but like it also
gave me a feel in like how every school's process is like
Florida's is so different from a Virginia tax or from LMU or from
Western in California versus Texas.
You know, every school is so different.
So I linked my second year to like, you know, it really don't
get wrong. I was bummed out.
You're always going to get bummed for rejection no matter
when it is. It could be your first, it could
be your last. You're always going to feel bad.
But it really gave me a feel on like what schools are looking
for. And then my SO that was my
second and my third attempt was when I had graduated and I
really thought I was going to hit this, hit my stride on this
one. Had my finished hours, got my
research done, worked. I'm pretty sure I, I've been
working in a vet clinic since I was 18.
You know, I had years of experience.
The only thing I was missing was really large animal experience
and I didn't really go on to do graduate classes.
And my third years when I applied to I believe half the
schools in the nation, just, I really kept them all in the
South. Honestly, from there.
I, you know, it was, that was the hardest rejection because
that was the year I had the most interviews.
I had about 8 interviews and you know, just statistics wise I
should gotten in any to any of those 8 and I was an alternate
for three. Didn't get in for any of them.
One of them being Texas Tech. You know, I thought I'd be a
shoe in there. They're only taking from 2
States and you know, that rejection really hurt because I
really thought it was going to be great there.
Even though I'm 1A big large animal guy, you know, they still
teach some animal. I can learn large animals I go.
So that one really was kind of crushing.
But then my 4th year, this is when it gets a little crazy I
get to so I cut it back a little bit.
I talked to like a lot of the schools about what they want.
LSU and AM were probably the biggest help with what they
wanted you to improve on. Like always set up those
meetings to talk with someone. Don't don't look at just the
reviews because I feel like those are just the most basic
thing that they can give you. They just like this.
Check some boxes and put it on e-mail.
Interview with someone. Anytime that you see an e-mail
about how you could improve yourself, go to those, even just
showing your face because the people teaching these are the
people on the board. So like A&M, you know, I had one
legs. Like I promise you, if you just
go fix this, because I had 1C in my undergraduate undergrad from
a freshman level class, right? It doesn't matter where you get
it done. You want to university, you just
do a dual credit or not dual credit Community College class
and you'll get it. Within my 4th year.
It was the crazy year as this is.
My fiance is also in vet school and she got accepted on our
third attempt so moved up to Virginia.
You know, I actually messed up and missed my Casper test due to
like the moving process and I wasn't able to even apply to Ian
in my last year. And so that was a big kind of
hurt because you know, dream school from Texas, yadda yadda,
like 1 to less. And I focused on the on the
schools that I felt like gave me better responses on Hondo.
Am I prove myself or the ones I were alternates for?
And to go from 13/8 interviews to 10.
I applied to 10 schools and I got one interview my last year.
I didn't even get it in a funny enough, I don't know what
happened with my zoo system, but I actually got a rejection
letter at first and then two months later it was like in
October when I got that or in October.
Yeah, no, it was October. I got rejected in October.
And a month later, like a month before interview started, they
were like, oh, there was a mess up in our system.
You were actually supposed to get an Airview e-mail.
And I was like, oh, so I went from being accepted to zero my
last application cycle to having an interview to going to Airview
and to becoming an alternate and then hearing a month in May.
So that gave me 3 months to move.
So, you know, it was it was a crazy story in between there a
lot of time, a lot of working, but you know, I can go into like
what I thought was the most help in improving your thing.
But yeah, that's my basic story of like how everything went.
And yeah, so now I'm here in Missouri.
Couldn't be happier. I.
Did not know all of that, Oh my. God, yeah.
Crazy, crazy. What will happen?
How you felt year to year having different reactions from the?
Schools because. I think a lot of people would
assume every year of improvement or getting closer and then just
being like this shy of it, yeah. Did you ever question if you
would not apply again? Yeah, honestly, it's.
Worth it? Yeah.
Yeah, honestly, it was the only detriment I would say was, you
know, don't do what I did and cast a wide net thinking that
would yolk snacks been somewhere.
Sure all it had a bunch of interviews and had those
alternate spots. But you know, if you're like, if
you're going to be 50, if on the list on every school, it's
pretty much not the best look. And you know, let's see.
It was just it was just crazy to deal with it going from cycle to
cycle and learning from what every school wants.
This was interesting because I actually did leave the field at
one point. This was before applications.
And then I realized I wasn't happy in pharmacies, so I came
back to Batman. You know, once you do that one
first quit and then you realize how much you miss it, you really
can't go back. I mean, my thing was, is like I
was actually, if I didn't get into Missouri this past year, I
was going to give it one more shot and probably was going to
be done, you know, because I would have to move on at some
point. My fiance would be graduate from
her vet school. I want to hold her back.
You know, living in Texas, having as much experience as I
have, I was honestly going to go because I, I was actually in
tech school when I got accepted because I just decided, you know
what, she was living up in Virginia.
There was not good jobs out there.
So I moved back to Texas to support her from there.
And while there, I got a bunch more experience.
I went to tech school, got to take some really cool classes.
I think that was honestly the biggest help on my application.
And you know, it's just like once you leave the field, you
truly miss it and then, you know, you have to come back.
Even if I wasn't going to be accepted that school, I was
going to be somewhere in the field, whether it was owning
practice, just as an owner, whether it was being an office
manager, a head technician, something in the field was going
to happen for me. I truly never felt like I was
going to leave the field. But applying again, did you know
kind of, you know, money every year application, you know,
dealing with rejection, it's something that makes you truly
think if it's right for you. But in the end, I believe you're
meant to be where you're meant to be.
So just keep going for what you hope for.
That's amazing. Oh my God, you're going to make
me cry. Going to hold it together.
It's the most beautiful thing, Jet.
There's this song by Luke Combs and it's something like it goes
like, what would you be doing if you weren't doing this?
And it's like if you weren't famous and someone asked for
that in an interview, and he's like, what do you mean?
I would be doing this like, no matter.
Exactly. Whatever capacity I would be
here, and I'm so glad that we're in class together.
It just shows how amazing Mizzou's class is.
Shout. Out, yes, Yeah, she out to
glass. Yeah, and their resilience and
like, I don't know, I didn't even, I think I've told this
story on the podcast before, but I kind of had the opposite
journey where it felt like everything was really fast
tracked because I graduated high school at 17, which isn't like
an abnormal age, But you know, I was the baby of my class.
And then I went to college at 17, graduated in three years and
didn't have a lot of as much experience as I thought.
Anyway, point is, I had like a whole conversation with my
parents and I said I don't think I'm going to apply this year
like at all, and I just want to take a gap year.
It was something I really thought I was going to do.
I was dead set. And I don't know, just after
that conversation with my parents, they were like, I mean,
do it. You know, what's the worst that
can happen? You get in.
And I said, yeah, I guess so. And so I applied.
And now that I'm in bed school, I can definitely see the gaps,
especially when it comes to basic tech skills.
You know, I'm doing these externships and I'm supposed to
be learning all of the doctor stuff.
And it's like, actually, I never learned how to draw the blood
before. I interpret these chem panels.
I might want to go look at that. I've been learning tech skills
as I go. And I think if I had a bigger or
a stronger foundation in some of the basic skills and how a
clinic operates and things like that.
Because all of my work was either with dead animals or
production animals. And that's not the same thing as
going into a small animal clinic or an emergency clinic and being
expected to know all of these basic tech skills.
I was told recently, hey, you need to work on your tech
skills. And I said, yeah, I should.
You're so right. Thank you for reminding me.
Yeah, and it's such a limited way to do that too.
Like you can really only do that through work or interning or
giving away hours, you know? Exactly, and I only bring that
up because I've been asked, hey, was it worth graduating early or
going to vet school early if you would?
And yes, like I don't regret my decisions at all throughout my
entire life, but I do have a noticeable gap in a lot of these
hands on skills. I'm very intelligent.
The class work is fine. I'm doing fine in class.
It's the clinical skills and the basic things that I literally
never learned because I didn't work in a small animal clinic or
in a lot of clinical scenarios in general.
So if that is something that you as a listener are considering
taking a gap year to work on those skills, definitely
recommend it. You can't go wrong either way
because you can always build those skills.
It's just going to be, I think I would have appreciated a
stronger foundation in these skills, you know, because it
would help have that expected knowledge.
So. I've seen every surgery under
the sun you could think of. I've placed hundreds of
catheters, millions of blood transfusions Now, you know, it's
great. And I will say though, the one
thing I will say is like, you know, the only negative I would
say to having kind of a gap year is but also comes with a lot of
positives is like I'm, you know, I'm feel like I'm very
technically sound. You can probably hand me a
needle right now and I probably still get a Catherine.
But like the thing I will say is getting out of the school habit.
You know, I've been out of school for two years and I was
in tech school and it's like cool and all, but like, you
know, it's not near the level of like correct, like, you know,
hot hard biology classes or anything close to like vet
school classes. It gets you prepared, don't get
me wrong. But like the one negative is
getting back into the swing of classes because it was a real
hard couple stumble and falls in the start of my vet school
career. But you know, once you get your
feet underneath you, you'll be fine, I promise.
But yeah, that's the one negative I would say to gap
year. Even still, that's just a me
thing. People can probably pick up a
book and have no issues whatsoever.
That's the only thing I would say about it.
That's an interesting point. Somebody left us a great comment
and they kind of asked 2 questions.
There are two questions that they had before taking their gap
year or before getting into vet school after their gap year.
And then they answered their own questions.
And I thought it was interesting kind of the same thing you said.
So their first one they said, I have to admit that at first I
was hesitant about taking that time out of school.
So just what you were talking now #1 what if I lose my
motivation and wouldn't want to go back to school once you're
out? Like, oh dude, I really want to
go back to school. Take the pay cut, take the time.
And you can't. You can, but it's a sacrifice to
have jobs in vet school. We all know.
And so #2 what if I would not know how to be a student again
when the time came? And then they answered it now
that they're in vet school. So one, the gap year will help
you confirm if you actually want to study for four more years in
a program as intense like veterinary medicine.
It is a serious commitment and it involves many sacrifices.
It's okay if during the gap year you decide this is not the path
for you. And that's important too.
I know people who have taken gap years and decided to take stay a
tech forever or go to tech school, become a LVT, RVT and
get the pay grade jump and knowledge jump without going to
that school. It's very different.
They're not the same thing, but it's another option or to go
into management, kind of the options that you talked about.
There's other opportunities within this field and I think
that's important to talk about because when I was in high
school or even early undergrad, I don't think I really
understood that people did that as a career.
I was like, oh, those are people who want to be vets.
That's not true. Always need great text and not
every great text should become a vet.
We need great text. I was at an externship last week
and met some of the most talented, intelligent,
knowledgeable texts I've ever met.
And I was like, stay where you're at actually.
Because if I open my own clinic and I wanted to look for text,
you're the kind of people I'd be looking for and I would
definitely pay you more for it because you know more than I do
when it comes to these kinds of things.
And so their second question they answered.
I felt out of practice in the first few weeks, but the student
mindset came back pretty quickly.
However, I don't see this as something bad because
regardless. So gap years.
This is a new experience for everybody and is very demanding.
You have to develop new studying strategies, routines, and
habits. Anyway, it is the process of
being a first year student in a doctorate program.
I agree with that. I went straight from undergrad
to that school and I still am working on my studying
strategies. Like I'm still changing it for
every class for every and so you kind of have to work on it
regardless. But I just wanted to talk about
that because I thought that they wrote a very long and useful
answer about what you just talked about.
I was just going to say kind of things that we've already talked
about, but just to look at the data years between vet school
and undergrad, honestly, it varied everywhere from one to
over 6. So like it, there wasn't really
a big consensus. It was mostly one or two years.
How many application cycles before you got accepted?
Looks like mostly 2 and then a tie between 3:00 and 4:00 and
then then intentionally took a gap year. 60% said no, 40% yes
and nontraditional. Do you consider yourself
nontraditional? That was actually a 5050 split
so and was taking time beneficial?
I thought this question was another good one because looking
back, the options were somewhat or extremely beneficial,
somewhat beneficial, neutral or not beneficial. 60% said
extremely beneficial. 20 or I'm sorry, 80% said extremely
beneficial, 20% said somewhat. Nobody said that it was neutral
and not beneficial like that. And I say that's probably about
accurate. Like I wish that like I said, I
had gotten some of those skills. I'm sure there's many benefits
to taking gap years. No, it's really interesting.
When we got the results back from that form, it was a blank,
a poll of 25 people, I should say, I think dispersed around
the country. I don't know a lot of these
things because you look at the acceptance rates for schools and
normally out of state is what 3 1/2 percent and then in states
between 20 to in the 30% acceptance rates.
So let's just for all of our listeners, majority are
rejected, a far majority are rejected the first time and I
would like to normalize it. I think they're, I have such
like a different perception of it now being in veterinary
school because I truly don't care how many times it took
someone to get in. They are, I feel, more qualified
to be there. I don't know if you feel that
way, Jet, but watching some of the people in our class, I feel
like if they took multiple cycles, they don't take it for
granted. They're more technically
talented by a long shot and they're very, very serious about
what they do. They're not entitled either.
Like I earned it. Yeah, it really puts it in
perspective fit for you when you take those years off to see just
be in the field and learn to appreciate everything.
I think like it's actually kind of more of a driver for me at
least, you know, like I love working at a clinic as much as
possible. I work, I have more overtime
than you can imagine. It's just being there and seeing
it's not being the bombing total because I'm obviously I wasn't
bad, but like being able to be that person that makes those big
decisions and be able to really help people and be able to have
the power to help more people. I think is what is what really
drove me to keep going and to them just improve myself and be
better. We.
Had a question. How did you deal with the
comparison? Watching others get in while you
were still trying and even more so your fiance?
I can. Only imagine.
Yeah. Yeah.
It was actually really interesting.
You know, I didn't actually know many people wanting to go to
that school. You know, I don't know.
I was at pre. It wasn't like a small
university. It was smaller.
And usually by the time you get to that point, most people have
kind of given up on the dream. You know, this sounds like
they're smart enough and the classes are too hard or
whatever. So I didn't really have too much
to compare to. But like you said, the biggest 1
was my fiance. We both had kind of very
different routes. Our first two parts of our
relationship. She stayed back at Community
College and did that because it was free for us in Dallas.
And she eventually came over to my university where I'd been
taking more, you know, science classes, taking harder level
classes, and our GPA S were about the same.
Hers was a little better. But then it came down to like
experience. I'll say she has more experience
than me. She completely had like $20,000
like saved up after she was done Community College.
She was like ready for undergrad and she, you know, it came down
to like experience. You know, we both worked clinics
some more hours about she had about 1000 more hours than me in
clinic experience. But I think what it came down to
was a couple of things. One her having a lot more large
animal experience because she worked with a dental specialist
and she got to see special horse surgeries, all these different
kind of osteology surgeries and kind every ACL of seal wherever
ligament torn surgery. You can see broken jaws and him
writing a textbook, but you know, it's just like there was
really much different from us. I actually had more.
She only had two interviews the year she got in and I had eight.
So like, what does that mean? Does it mean And she had two
schools that I didn't even get to interview at and I had eight
schools that she did it. So, you know, it was really
weird to go because I honestly thought just thinking about back
to that time was thinking like, Oh my gosh, if it ends up being
me that gets into that school and hurry make me feel bad.
But you know, I'll be happy for myself and it's more likely to
happen to me. But then as like my rejections
kept coming and, and she gets her acceptance.
I don't know what to think. So, you know, it's never, I'm
going to say never compare yourself because everybody's
completely different. Me and my fiance very similar
paths and like the grades and experience aspect, but just
little different rations here and there.
Different ways you write something can really change a
lot. And that's actually one thing
that A&M talked with me about is like it really a lot of schools
don't care about the grades as much.
I've talked to many, many people who decide that and grades, you
know, as long as you're not just like don't get the lowest GPA
you can to apply to that school. Let's be honest there.
But like they read, they read into more of your personal
statement, all your experiences, your essays, your letters of
recommendation. They're looking for a little
specific details from each of them.
And it's just, there's so many different aspects of different
schools look at. And then it gets to the
interview portion. I, I think of myself as like a
really good interviewer. I know how to talk to people.
I've been trained in it and, and everything you can think of.
But the one thing I would say is like also during my application,
my first like one in my, I don't know, because like the second
year I got to go to some, I got to go to like 1 school.
But my first two years, most of them were online like this
because COVID was really kind of hitting when I was there.
And you know, I think being an online interview, you know,
Congrats the people who have gotten in and can do it.
But biggest piece of advice I'll ever give you and please listen
to this is go to your in person air views.
It changes so much about it. They can see your energy.
They can see how you look. You're not just in a room
answering their questions because I feel it's very
impersonable. And there's still some schools
out there that don't even have an interview.
They just have like prerecorded questions that you just answer.
But if there's an opportunity you can to go to an in person
interview, 100% do it because it makes the world of a difference.
You can make a way better impression than you ever can
through a screen. That's a great point.
So LSU did not do interviews the year that I got accepted, but I
went to an in person interview for Royal Veterinary College,
which was the multiple, many interviews, the Mmis, and they
had it in like 3 or 4 different locations throughout the US
because it's AUK school. And so I went to one in Dallas
and it was so interesting because you also get to know so
much more about what they're looking for and you get to meet
the people that are going to be teaching you or the people
you're going to be around and you can talk to them about
they're just so cool. Like I remember it was kind of
an all day thing for the Mmis because they knew that, I mean,
they had flown all the way out from the UK and we had all flown
in or out or whatever. And they really took the time to
give us a presentation about all of the cool things about their
college and meet every single person individually.
Like the professors, I'm assuming they're professors or I
know they were, they would go around and talk to you and, you
know, and then that also made the interviews later in the day
a little less scary. So that was just another
experience and I wanted to bring back up y'all talked about, I
guess maturity for those gap years and the difference and
taking things serious. I'm kind of guilty of it.
I'm the kind of person I don't do warnings.
I'd rather work at 10:00 AM to 12:00 AM shift then like an 8:00
AM to 3:00, if that makes sense. Anyway, so I find myself I'll
skip a morning class and watch it later.
There's no consequences. It's not attendance mandatory
for first years at LSU and it's recorded.
So there's not really like downside to not going, but I was
going to say people who are older than me and people who
have had full time jobs, people who have taken gap years, they
all are very serious about going to every single thing, taking it
serious while they're there. And I like admire that so much.
And I tell myself all the time, I'm going to do it.
I'm going to be like them. Somebody told me once one of
these people, they say, well, I look at it as a job.
You can't just not show up to your job.
And I was like, you're so right, you're so right.
I don't know. That's just, I'm also just very
involved and so I get busy and I'm like, whatever, I'll skip my
8:00 AM and watch it at 3:00 PM after my last class.
It doesn't really make a difference for me, but I do
think it's a big thing. Maturity.
It was also one of the number one things people said in the
most valuable thing gained in their gap years.
Almost all of them said maturity, life experience,
personal growth, professional growth, knowledge, confidence.
That's kind of the synopsis of what everybody think thought
that they gained that and and burnout prevention.
There were just so many things. I was like, yeah that makes
sense now that y'all say that you're right.
All of the people who took gap years or that are older than me
are definitely more mature than me.
But I'm 21 so like oh. Well, I wouldn't be ready at 20.
Yeah, no way in. Hell, I don't know how people I
think back when I was 21, I don't know how y'all do it.
Like I definitely couldn't do it back then.
I've I'm actually closer to age to the emergency doctors at the
hospital than I am to most of my classmates.
And I just, I don't know how I could have done, I don't think I
could have done it back then with my maturity level.
But you know, it's every person's different.
And I do think taking that gap here gets you that experience
and shows you a little bit of the real world.
Because another thing is to is like working reception, you see
some of these students not so you know how to handle a paper
person in emergency situation. And another form that maturity
is learning how they like learn to talk to people or learn to
talk to clients in those stressful settings.
And it doesn't have to just be emergency.
It could be something happening at your clinic alone, whether
there is like a miss prescription filled, something
else got messed up, you know, surgery mishap, anything.
And you know, getting that life experience really matures you
into realizing this is all serious.
So you don't want to miss these classes.
You don't want to miss those lectures.
And I agree with you. I, I'm guilty.
I've done it a time or two where I've, you know, maybe missed
that 8:00 AM and had watched a little lecture right after at
3:00. But, you know, it's just, it's
all perspective. Once you once people see the
real world, when they get into clinics, I think they'll really
hit them. Like you got to be mature in
every situation at all times. Yeah, and also, I know a lot of
people, when we had the APVMA Facebook group and I was kind of
in charge of that. I bring that up a lot because
literally every single day I spent at least an hour looking
through the group chat mod. My whole job was to monitor and
moderate. And so I read a lot of posts and
I read a lot of FAQs and things like that, which is part of the
inspiration for this episode, because people absolutely lose
their mind. I did.
I did too. Like it's so serious, but the
gap year, all the questions about gap years, all the
questions, so many questions, but a lot of them are the same
and a lot of the answers are all the same, which is kind of why
we want to wanted to address what we could in this.
But I was going to say, I see or saw a lot of people talking
about, I'm scared because I'm older.
I'm not straight out of undergrad.
Am I going to fit in? To be honest with you, not the
youngest, but one of the youngest in my class.
And I'm the person that's out of place.
It's more people who have taken multiple cycles and it it's also
irrelevant once you're in school.
Humanly nobody. I don't know about y'all, but we
had a conversation during like a random wet lab one time and we
were talking about something and somebody said, Oh yeah,
yesterday was my birthday. And I said, oh, how old are you?
And they said 28. I was like, you're 28.
What the heck? Like And they were like, well,
how old are you? And I said, I'm 21.
And they were like, what? Like people don't even know or
notice unless you're obviously a different age.
And even then people still treat you the same.
I just don't think that once you're in that's school, people
really care about it. No, I really, the age thing is
honestly coming in, I was 25 when I started this, 26 right
now. I thought it was going to be
like, Oh my gosh, I'm going to be with a bunch of people who
just learned how to drink and just, you know, not mature.
But honestly it, it doesn't make a world of difference.
The people who I didn't even know were 2830, they seem like
they're 20 to me as well. So the age thing, don't even
think about that. That is such a nothing to worry
about kind of issue. I really, I don't, I, I mean, I
know who how old the oldest person in our class is, but
like, what? I guess that was their age.
Not even close to that. And, you know, even some of our
professors, I think some of them are still in their 20s and I
can't even tell. So you know, the age thing,
anybody needs to hear that. Don't even think about it.
It's so minuscule and no one cares at all.
Now, will you get that little, wow, you were that age kind of
reaction every time. Yeah.
But like, yeah, it's kind of a compliment.
I see it at least. It's definitely a compliment.
And most of the time it's because to me, I think there's
a, I'm not the only person. I've had this conversation
before. When you're choosing age 212223,
whatever, you think everybody around you is also that same
age, if that makes sense. Like you view everybody as kind
of the same age past your 20 year mark.
So every time somebody tells me they're not 21, I'm like, what?
And then it's the same reaction for them.
They're like, you're not 28 and you know what I mean?
So it's not even like, Dang, you're old.
It's like, wait, you're not my age, like both directions.
So it's just really funny. But going to some of these
questions kind of that we talked about on the Google forum.
So we talked about what you did during gap year, some of the
more basic things. What was or what would you say
is your best advice for pre vet students who are facing looking
or either intentionally or not intentionally taking a gap year
this year? Oh, definitely.
But one thing I will say, if you've never applied anything
about taking a gap here, just apply.
Apply to like 1-2 schools, give it a shot in state schools,
always just apply. I've known so many people who
apply their junior fret or senior year of college and then
they just get in. They didn't think they were
going to get in and they get in, they get to start early.
A lot of schools have accommodations for that.
So that's my first piece of advice going from that building
off your question of the gap year is, you know, I kind of why
I saw that question earlier, I kind of broke it down into three
things is review, plan and execute from there.
If you are, if you did find out from the schools who've got it
or not, ask them what they need, what you need to improve on.
You know, show that you're trying to make improvements.
You know, even if you don't do a thing, even just making them
aware of your presence is something good.
So that's the review. See what you need to improve on.
Mine was I needed more large animal experience, so I went and
fixed that plan to do it. Go or ask your mentors, ask the
community, find anything. The only way I got my there's,
it's kind of hard to get into the horse and large animal thing
just on a whim. But you know, I got it through
my receptionist who went to who's gone to her horse Dr. for
30 years. And just through that one
connection, I was able to spend use my one day off a week to go
up to that horse, a clinic and work.
It's just you need to see what you need to do it out execute
it. If it's something that can wait,
push it off till then, don't stop improving.
Because my biggest regret was, is my second attempt was not
doing anything in that gap year. I just thought I have playing
experience. I graduated.
I don't need to do anything different.
And that's not it at all. You need to constantly be
improving. Just be able to add something to
your resume. And the biggest thing I would
say is the biggest help in a gap year is doing something along
the educational lines, whether it's research, research is
always great to do. Get your name on paper, get
something published. Every school would love to see
that. But I think the biggest help
honestly was tech school. You know, I went there, you
know, and you get to take some really fun classes.
I took Paris to tell anatomy, anatomy and you know, I was just
animal welfare, like real bare bones classes and like schools
love to see that. I had no school really ever
asked about my education until I brought up the tech school
stuff. Learning what I learned there
and you know, just getting your foot in the door and being able
to have a name attached to it. Heck, even during my zoo
interview, just mentioning I went to the tech school in
Dallas, one of my interviewers, his, his protege is actually the
head Dean of the tech school in Dallas.
So, you know, just doing doing anything, lead you places that
you won't ever expect or give you experiences you won't ever
expect. And so just don't do nothing.
Do something to improve and find out what you need to improve on
is what I would say. And it's different for
everybody. If you need to go back fixed
grades, do that. If you need to go get more
experience, do that. If you just want to take a break
and just not think about it, you could do that, but don't just do
nothing. Go get a job in a tech as a tech
or do something in a vet field, especially be the vet field
because you're gonna, you have to learn the reality of this
field. It's not all puppies and
kittens, sunshine and roses. You're going to see some bad
things and you're going to see some, not some nice people and
you're going to learn to deal with that, not just be able to
just go on a limb on that. So that's my biggest piece of
advice is plan on what you need to fix.
Ask that schools or ask what you need to fix on your application
and just claim to execute it and use your resources around you.
Again, I would never have met this horse talker if I did talk
to receptionist about this issue and he was great.
I got to learn to do so much. He was actually trained to do
AI, so I got to learn to do that with horses.
He showed he let me do the scope.
I forget the nose scope, I can't remember the actual word, but
got to do that. It was real cool and I got to
work my first colleague horse, you know, that was a that's an
experience all night experience that I didn't know I signed
myself up for. But he just I'm not going to say
I regret it because I had a great time.
I learned so much and it's just being stagnant as the issue.
Don't do what I did my second attempt or I guess my second to
third attempt that in between year is do nothing because I had
more interviews but it amounts it to nothing because I didn't
improve anything. So just constantly look to
improve and better yourself. Failure doesn't mean you failed,
it just means more room for improvement.
That's perfect advice, really. I mean, I also believe that
don't listen to a lot of people who aren't in the profession.
I almost didn't apply or try at all because in my, let's see,
sophomore year of undergrad I got 2C's.
I'm horrible at chemistry even though my dad's an organic
chemist and the counselor told me I would never get into
veterinary school. I decided to not believe her.
I worked really hard on my application.
I did every deep dive into like how do I apply?
What do I do? We have an episode on Vemkaz
Deep Dive so for our listeners, please listen to it.
We give a lot of really good advice on how to market yourself
because that's the whole thing. Think this is marketing yourself
and making sure you fit every single box.
And then I got into four veterinary schools.
And so I want our listeners to not believe the people who quit.
You need to believe the people who stayed and like you said,
like Jet, who they couldn't imagine their life without it.
And those are the people who get in.
It doesn't matter how many cycles it takes, they're going
to get in. And did you have anything that
you would have done differently? So just to share what people
said, the number one, I'll let y'all guess.
What do you think the number one thing people said that they wish
they had done differently during their gap year was?
I think I know. Gretel, I know it because she.
I feel like it just has to be something technical skills.
That's the thing everybody feels like they just feel like they
don't have enough of. But I'm willing to think it's
probably going to be something with classes or grades.
None of the love. It's travel.
I thought you said. Money, the number one thing,
literally somebody like All Caps said travel.
And it was also something that people said that they loved
doing during their gap year was the ability to travel.
So travel and save money. And we already talked about
saving money, that is. Yeah, I will.
I will say I did go do a lot of cool travelling in my in between
and I would probably never, ever, ever be able to do if I
was in school still. So you know, I will say that is
something I can't say I regret not doing because I actually did
because all my friends always were going on a trip somewhere.
So I somehow was able to tag along to those.
So yeah, I would say if I was just staying in the same place
all the time and not travelling, I think I would have gone
insane. Yeah, I definitely being in that
school with no money. So double whammy not being able
to travel. Now, I do swipe my credit card
and now trust I will go on a trip, but I don't have the money
to do so. So it's just like, Nah, I'm
going to make the sacrifices to save and protect my peace.
My calf's going crazy. Sorry.
But yeah. The top answers or the only
answers were travel. Pretty much everybody who
responded to that question said travel.
Save money was the second one. A couple of people said nothing.
OK, fair enough. They were like, I loved
everything I did. They don't need to change it.
Fair enough to And then the other two answers were more
research and more hands on with other species.
So we had a couple people say, you know, I only did exotics in
small animals or whatever variation of that and they wish
they had done more large animal horses.
Name 1. This is one thing I actually,
I'm glad you said that because I really want to bring it up is
I've talked doing my interviews with these schools.
They're always like, hey, don't worry about not having
experience with every type of animal from exotics to large
animal to anything. I'm going to be honest, if you
get that experience, like I know they say they don't care, but
they really do. The only thing I added to my
resume besides the tech school was getting that horse
experience. And honestly, I thought I would,
I thought I would hate large animal.
You know, I've always been a small animal guy, exotic pet
kind of guy. I've always would prefer rats,
dogs, dogs, cats, everything under the sun because my doctor
did see exotics. Heck, I saw a lemur one time and
it was just that. That truly does matter.
Like don't I know, I know the schools say they don't and that
you'll learn it while you're in school, but get that experience
because even still, people are so like once you get to vet
school, you feel like you're, you get this kind of like
imposter syndrome kind of going like, oh, I don't deserve to be
here because I don't know how to work that horse.
I don't know how to halt her horse.
I don't know how to herd cattle. Get that experience because who
knows, maybe you'll love it. I ended up finding out I might
do go work on horses to do cattle depending on how I build
my clinic. And there's so many programs out
there for large animals that like just pay off your loans.
There's one just with the US government pays 40,000 a year.
If you work 8 hours a week, 8 hours a week on just cows and
you get $40,000. That's great.
Get your experience, find what you love.
Don't close every door. And you know, if you're just
that person that thinks you're just going to do AB and C and
that's your plan, your dad cave to it, stick to that plan.
But my biggest advice, I will say is get as much animal
experience you can. Don't like, don't be like me and
just stay. And I love my clinic.
I love Doctor Rife to death. She is the Angel of my life.
She's the greatest woman ever. But I do think I should have,
you know, worked a little less and gone to get more experience
in which I did my last attempt of don't don't worry about your
responsibilities first because that's another thing too is like
working at clinics. I know a lot of people work at
these rural clinics and they really depend on them as a
worker. But don't put that effort ahead
of your duties of what your dreams are, your hopes, all that
you know, you gotta you gotta like make some sacrifices
sometimes because that was the hardest thing ever.
It was not even leaving like Texas.
It's leaving that job, leaving the Doctor Who trained me for
most my experiences is taught me a wealth of knowledge is giving
me so much. So get that experience,
appreciate your people, use your resources when you're there is
another big thing I have wanted to bring up.
I feel the same way, but kind of the opposite.
You know, I had, I don't want to say large animal clinic
experience. I didn't have as much as that,
but a lot of large animal production experience.
I worked in the swine unit like I was in the in the trenches,
you know what I mean? And I had.
Especially swine. Oh yeah, when I'm power washing,
getting all of that nice things sprayed back onto my face.
Beautiful. Anyway, and then my other main
experience was necropsy. So I saw a lot of species and
it's invaluable. Like it is so awesome and
imperfect and I think everybody should do a couple necropsies at
least once. You know, you really get to see
the anatomy. Anyway, different story.
But what I was lacking is working with what live animals.
And so I also didn't work with small animals.
So I was like, I feel pretty solid in my handling of horses
and all of this. But when I go to these small
animal clinics on externships, I've made a point even though I
don't want to go into small animal only, I want to go into
mixed animal and do more large animal than small animal.
But for all of my externships, I've chosen to do small animal
and at least this past few months.
I'm going into equine next month.
But I've realized that I just absolutely lack so much there
and that's something that I can't make up for other than
going out and working in those clinics.
It's something that I'm working on.
But yeah, I agree, it would be very beneficial.
I know in a class we were doing evidence based veterinary
medicine and it's supposed to be, you know, toned down pretty
easy. I don't want to say easy, but
the examples, the clinical examples are very common things
that you would see in a clinic if you worked with that species.
Whatever choose it. And so last semester we were
doing, I don't know, I don't remember the lecture but anyway,
something with the gut and they said here's these symptoms what
does it have? And I felt like the whole class
was like GDVGDV and I was like what the hell is a GDVI?
Literally was like, what are y'all talking about?
Like Oh my gosh, I genuinely have noticed, you know, I know
nothing about dogs and cats. I was like, oh it can't be that
bad, right? It can't be worse than usually
large animals, the thing that people struggle with because
they didn't get that experience. But it's the same way.
So definitely a little bit of everything would be great.
Yeah, definitely. I agree.
Just not even. And I'm not saying you need to
spend hundreds of hours with every animal.
Just open yourself up to it because, you know, I just spent
one one day a week for a whole summer on it, probably about, I
don't know, 300 hours, 500 hours with them.
And the amount of the wealth of knowledge I've learned just from
that. And heck, the stuff that I can
just apply from like what I've learned in school is great.
Like when we talked about the limb on a horse, one of the
first things I learned was the nerve block.
And then when we got to that section, I knew nerve blocks.
And, you know, I didn't have to think about like that lecture
constantly. I just thought about what I was
taught, you know, because I'm a big believer in like Sheriff
sitting in a classroom reading a power PowerPoint over and over
again, doing your Quizlet a million times is a good way to
make sure you know the knowledge.
But experience, it's the best thing.
I can guarantee I'll never miss a clinician question on any of
these tests I'm taking right now just because I know all the
tests. I know a thyroid test, I know a
Cushing's Addison's test. I know diabetes insurance and
out that was my best test is when we had a cell biology thing
basically over all diabetes. So it's just I also think it's a
way of learning is getting experience, you know, even if
it's nothing to do like in that Med like I'm a got out to VBMA.
Big, big fan of them. You know, I learned a lot of
business aspects from working with my doctor.
I was in charge to controlled substances ordering and I didn't
get to hit the button to say by now I always have to let my
officer manager do that. But I learned how to do proper
inventory. You have to make sacrifices here
and there on like what medicine you can get filled or if like,
you know, should I prioritize getting this machines region kit
or should I prioritize getting this machines maintenance done?
You know, it's, it's a lot and it's experience that you can use
for not just Med school. Biggest help for Med school, but
not just Med school. You can learn a lot of life
skills because get that experience.
It's a way to learn. It's a way to improve yourself.
And I think it's the most fun, you know, get to see cool
things, do cool things. Definitely.
Did you incorporate any of that in your personal statement or
descriptions or what did you change for personal statement
descriptions and letters? Did it vary a lot year to year?
Yeah, I actually did. So I actually had my lawyer
friend help me a lot because I don't know the best of writing,
you know, understanding. I can write a paper, but I can't
write about myself. That's like something I found
very hard to do. But what I realize is in my
first couple, I would focus so much on one detail in my airview
or my personal statement that that's would be the whole thing.
And that's not what you need to do.
You need to display several, several different things.
Mizzou really loved. I brought up research into mine
because you know, Mizzou, we're here big on research.
So I knew that they would want to hear about that.
I talked about how I paid for all of my undergrad while being
an undergrad student. I worked full time, man was a
full time student all four years, whether I had one job to
three job just varied. You just have to like with every
year I learned more and more. But what I think the best advice
I could see is just diversify yourself.
Make yourself look great across the board everywhere and you'll
hit something that they'll like about you, whether it's you
know, a school is more experience, whether they value
your research, whether they value your work ethic or if
you're in the Army or if you do, if you have 5 papers published
or if you have a four point O, really just present every aspect
of yourself in those essays and everything.
I'm also going to be a little say that like you should really
appeal to these schools and find out what they're for because you
know, like I said, when I found out Mizzou was big on research,
I went back, read the whole paper, read everything that I
knew about the research and explained my part of it.
I wasn't big in the research. I was just mentioned because I
would go catch the snakes. I wasn't really doing the
research on them, but like I still was able to talk about
that and they appreciate that. So know your audience, show
yourself and also don't like try to, I'm put a little censorship
here. Don't try bullshit them.
They can smell it my little way. It does not matter what you
think. And another thing too is like,
if you say you do get rejected and you have a gap year and
you're just thinking about what you said in the interview, don't
think about that. Like, Oh my gosh, I remember
because there's this one girl. She was telling me about how she
was doing research on a specific animal and they asked, oh,
where's this animal from? It was like exotic.
And she said completely wrong country and you know, and then
she was like, I'm going to be honest, I don't really know, but
I think it was in this area and none of them knew that.
And she was freaking out about that question and that like
she's not going to get accepted for that.
She was accepted in the first go around.
So don't dwell on your interview skills or focus on things that
like don't matter in the end. Just know who you're appealing
to. Don't bullshit show your full
self and always be ready to be able to build off of what you
say. Because they will.
I've with all the interviews I've had, they will pull
anything from those interviews. It could be the most minute
detail ever. You know, so many people brought
high school stuff for me. I never thought they would care
about my high school stuff, but they were.
So there was every school I feel like asked something about high
school or some kind of curriculum that like translated
that, you know, no, you're like, don't just fill your
application. Do something with it.
Explain it, be able to explain it and know who you're appealing
to. That's a big piece of advice I'd
like to give to people. Yeah, and on the topic of
essays, don't use AI. Please don't.
They know.
They know so quickly and like, you know, like I know you think
like that older professor or these older people won't know.
It's not just them looking, it's everybody.
Don't use AI. That is such a bad idea.
And if you think you're smart and you're going to put it
through another AI to make it look like it's not AI, they know
all the tricks. Don't do it.
I promise you, it's not worth it.
Also, I think it's not even like a typo or a little like
something that you didn't run through.
Grammarly usually reads is better and more personable than
something that you wrote because I can see the argument.
Well, I wrote it and I just used Grammarly.
Sure, whatever, but genuinely like Gretel and I would read
scholarship applications for a PVMA and we were like, this is
not like this person might have done these things, but they did
not write this. You know, if you say write an
essay about this experience, this experience and this
experience, sure, that's the information that you did.
But it's, it just doesn't sound good.
And it's so easy to spot. And I've heard some nightmare
stories about people leaving. This part drives me crazy when
you leave the part that says let me know if you need anything
else or whatever at the end. To me, it shows just sheer
unwillingness to care, because if you really cared, you would
type that whole thing out, make sure it's the best thing ever.
And like you said, they noticed the imperfections and like to
see those things. You know, I'm not the world's
best speller. I know there's probably a typo
somewhere and that thing should, and I probably did do a spell
check on it. But like, it's those they like
to see genuine. They, they, again, like I said,
they can smell bullshit a mile away.
And if you think you're smart by using AI, you're not it's, it's
not an original idea. They 100% know.
And they're getting better with the application.
Like I remember I got an e-mail from the Texas one saying that
they're really having to hammer down on the AI stuff because
it's just so obvious now and people are doing it left and
right. So the original be yourself.
And I'm not saying AI is an interesting tool to use
nowadays, you know, I'm not saying it's never going to be
not useful. Use it as a way to improve
yourself. Hey, what do you hey AI, is
there anything else you think I should like lengthen in this or
anything else you suggest I write?
Don't, but don't use it too right.
Use it as a way to just help you, right?
Now I I completely agree. I completely agree.
I feel like when I applied AI was around but never would have
thought of using it. Never would and I wish that were
still the standard because you have to be able.
It's like a soul finding journey.
That's why I felt writing my personal statement, it took me
months and months and months to like craft what I thought was
perfect and like 7 or 8 people reviewing it and giving their
thoughts. And I love that you said like if
you cared you would put in the work.
And that is the veterinary profession.
We study all day and I still, I might get called in tonight
between 12:00 and 4:00 AM, but I'm still happy to go.
You have to care that much. And if you don't care enough to
even write that essay, then this is not the field for you.
And I know, like, not to bring this up again, but genuinely
it's so infuriating because we had a couple, we had like, I
don't remember like 7 or 8 scholarships that we had to
choose a winner for on a national level.
And there was a couple categories, not one, but in
multiple where we could tell the winner used AI.
But what are we going to do? Just not get the scholarship?
Like we can tell. And it's so upsetting that we
didn't get one applicant that didn't use obvious AI.
Like that's really upsetting. Try to care.
It's very upsetting. You know, it's just like, and to
me, I feel like it's even more obvious that you're using it.
You know, like, nobody's gonna have that perfect punctuation,
use that perfect grammar or use that long word that you've
probably read for the first time.
And, you know, those people aren't, like, checking them
either. They're just accepting what it
is and just submitting it. Yeah, AI is a good tool, but not
for it Can't. It can't be you.
You got to be yourself. Yeah, and I feel like we were
pretty lenient. Some of them, we ran all of them
through an AI checker and some of them came back as 100% and we
were like, hey, like this one isn't 100%.
They probably use Grammarly or something like that.
That's not the biggest deal, but the ones that you left all the M
dashes and like an emoji and like, come on, like let's be so
serious. I would love to do our wrap up
question which what has brought you joy lately, Jet?
OK, so I'm going to list off a couple of things, some that are
more momentary, some that have been going on for a while.
One, we had an amazing furball. You know, I think we did a
really good job on that. It was amazing.
Gambling, drinking, party all night, really everybody told me
about how they're going to leave within the first hour.
Everybody stayed for all the hours there.
A second SABMA symposium. I highly recommend it.
If you didn't go, you know it's great.
You know, I will say some of the lecture animal dentals in
general practice, like I'm big. I want to be a lot real dental
guy with animals. Just telling her that she got me
this all expenses paid trip to Saint Louis next week, our
weekend of spring. Yeah, next weekend where they're
paying for me to drive there, my hotel, anything I spend on the
trip, and I get to get special dental training with specialists
in the field, all in Saint Louis, and I get a hotel for
free. The only thing I had to do is
just say hello and talk about my experience.
So you know, always talk to your mentors, always show
appreciation of people and go to Southwest Symposium.
And the other thing I will say, this is more nerd stuff, but the
anime season has been great this year.
Jiu Jitsu, Kaizen, Fire Force, Hell's Paradise, top three
shows, amazing. They're the only things get me
through these weeks sometimes, I swear.
You must have loved the anime convention, though for our
listeners it was at the same time as our.
Symposium. It was so perfect.
I was able to somehow get to that area too.
I walked around the convention for a little bit.
I was just nerding out while also get to do vet nerd stuff.
It was great. It was like the perfect.
It was in heaven honestly. I was having a great time and I
got to talk to people to cool costumes and all that.
It was great. Love the experience.
All right. Well, thank you so much Jeff for
joining us today for talking about it.
Thank you so much to everybody who listens, and huge thank you
to people who genuinely, I kind of synopsized everything, but I
did really read all of them and just try to give the best
representative of what everybody said.
So big shout out to everybody who responded to this, for JET,
for coming on, for my Auburn friend who sent us, you know,
awesome advice. Just thank you to everybody and
I hope everybody has a great day.
I want to give a big shout out to doctor Mark Sheets who was my
mentor inspired me to that greatest man ever love him to
death. Shout to doctor Reif she was
person who supported me through vet school, paid my rent one
time, my biggest mentor, greatest woman ever.
Love her to death and I would also.
I love to give big shot to Gretel.
She's being an amazing president, doing great love
podcast and for those people out there who think they should just
give up, if you got hope, hold on to it.
It will be better, I promise. I love.
That, yeah. And that's a huge point.
We can't talk forever, but huge shout out to the mentors and the
people who continue to inspire us every day.
You know, let's dedicate this episode to them because so much
of that is because of them. I hate the people who tell me
don't do it or the people in the field, you know, drop out.
Don't. Anyway, huge shout out to the
mentor. But yeah, thanks everybody for
listening and we'll see you next time.