Vet Tech Tales: The Early Years by Phoenix Sullivan Read Free Book Online

excruciatingly slow to come, but come it did. Textbooks, classes and fees would be covered. I only had my off-campus living expenses to take care of. Two summers of savings coupled with a few hours of part-time work a week and my freshman year would be a done deal. My life plan was back on track.
    Two days after I turned 17 I graduated high school – a full year early. The summer sped by as I worked hard to amass a few extra dollars. It was an exciting time, with my focus needlesharp on the courses I would be signing up for, the apartment I would be renting, and the job I would have to get hired for to keep the plan going.
    Biomedical science would, of course, be my major. With any luck, I would be able to get into my first animal husbandry class in the fall. Since my scholarship also came with credit for a handful of freshman courses, I didn’t have to fill my schedule with many of the normally required classes, leaving me free to pursue courses that often weren’t offered till the sophomore year. I was quite smug in the knowledge that I had an advantage over many of my freshman counterparts competing for the few seats available in the pre-vet classes. Getting an earlier start meant I had a very good chance of getting all my prerequisite classes out of the way by the end of my junior year. And that ultimately meant I wouldn’t have to wait till I’d completed my senior year to apply to vet school. I’d gotten through high school in just three years; I’d do the same in undergrad school too.
    With my easy success in academics to this point, there was no question I would be accepted into vet school on my first try, no matter the daunting statistics of the number of applicant hopefuls for each open seat in the college. I had heard the stories of students who were in masters programs still waiting to be accepted into vet college after two, three or more applications in as many years. That, of course, could not happen to me. And why were some of those folk being accepted anyway? I shuddered to think that any student could be accepted into or be graduated out of vet college with anything below a 3.5 average. Did I want someone who may have failed a class or even made a C in one treating one of my animals? A pity, I thought, that all graduates got the same degree. How could an animal owner ever tell what quality of education lay behind the diploma hanging on the office wall?
    So it was in mid-August I waved good-bye to my childhood and marched confidently toward the beckoning light of Texas A&M .

     

How Long Is Four Months in Teenager Years?
     
    College Station, Texas, in August is hot. Three weeks before school started I moved into my new apartment with the bare minimum in tow. Security deposit, first and last month rent, and the sundry fees the scholarship failed to cover ate deep into my bank account. First order of business before school started was to look for a part-time job. For transportation, I had a bicycle and a bus pass, limiting my options of where I could work. I pedaled far and wide, fortunately finding a position less than a mile from my apartment at a fast-food establishment – honest work with a flexible schedule. I signed on for 20 hours per week. That seemed reasonable given the 18-hour course load I had scheduled.
    Only, somehow, the 20 hours quickly grew to 30 as the workforce shifted.
    “Good help is hard to keep,” my manager told me philosophically as he scratched through yet another name on the schedule and penciled “Phoenix” in its place.
    I was arriving either early in the morning or staying late into the night. When I wasn’t at school, I was at work. I remembered my brother’s despair at having to find a job mid-semester in a college town, and I knew how desperately I needed to keep this one. Thirty hours turned into 35, then slipped into 40. I was afraid to say no. Afraid that if I did I would be thrown out on the streets with no income and no hope.  
    Likewise, my 18-hour course