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What are the pros and cons of being a veterinarian, and why?

Hi I'm Arianna I'm in 7th grade and I want to be a veterinarian. I wanna be it because I love pets and I like to help, and I love cats. I want to accomplish this but I don’t know the steps to do it. So I need your help in finding out if this is the job for me.

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Michael’s Answer

Hi, Arianna, thanks for your question. A friend of mine when we were about your age would use the pros and cons approach to making important decisions in his life so I think it's a good idea to apply it to your career choice. Veterinarians get paid decently, have many options such as going into companion animal medicine and surgery or working on horses in the U.S. Army or become a researcher exploring how viruses work and designing vaccines, even for humans. Not many careers allow for this level of variety. You would have to go to college and then graduate-level veterinary school which is considered a professional school. Also, at the end, you would have to take a licensing-exam which almost all veterinarians must pass even if they do not go into private practice. Licensing is done per state requirements in which you would practice. There are some cons such as long hours and increasingly for private practice veterinarians do not always get the respect they deserve from clients and because animal lives are on the line they are under a lot of pressure. Some of the veterinarians are not adequately equipped to deal with the stress which leads to issues which are probably best discussed elsewhere. All that said, I think looking at the pros and cons is one approach. It may not be the best suited. Some people go into this field because it is a passion. They can find plenty of cons (long hours, tuition is high, etc.), but it is that sometimes singular passion that drives them. So it's not the number of pros, but rather 1 pro that outweighs numerous cons. So keep that in mind, search for what drives you, what satisfies your curiosity, and put that (foremost) into the equation of career choices. Many times the people you meet along the way will not only point you in one direction or another; you may understand years after an encounter what the importance was in making your choice. When you notice these things, and it takes a few years, I feel you are onto how to make robust decisions when it comes to choosing your career. May it be veterinarian!
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Michael’s Answer

Hi, Arianna, thanks for your question. A friend of mine when we were about your age would use the pros and cons approach to making important decisions in his life so I think it's a good idea to apply it to your career choice. He would use the fingers on one hand to count the pros, the fingers on the other for the cons, and then whichever hand had the most fingers would allow him to either do something or not based on the number of pros and cons. Veterinarians get paid decently, have many options such as going into companion animal medicine and surgery or working on horses in the U.S. Army or become a researcher exploring how viruses work and designing vaccines, even for humans. Not many careers allow for this level of variety. You would have to go to college and then graduate-level veterinary school which is considered a professional school. Also, at the end, you would have to take a licensing-exam which almost all veterinarians must pass even if they do not go into private practice. Licensing is done per state requirements in which you would practice. There are some cons such as long hours and increasingly for private practice veterinarians do not always get the respect they deserve from clients and because animal lives are on the line they are under a lot of pressure. Some of the veterinarians are not adequately equipped to deal with the stress which leads to issues which are probably best discussed elsewhere. All that said, I think looking at the pros and cons is one approach. It may not be the best suited. Some people go into this field because it is a passion. They can find plenty of cons (long hours, tuition is high, etc.), but it is that sometimes singular passion that drives them. So it's not the number of pros, but rather 1 pro that outweighs numerous cons. So keep that in mind, search for what drives you, what satisfies your curiosity, and put that (foremost) into the equation of career choices. Many times the people you meet along the way will not only point you in one direction or another; you may understand years after an encounter what the importance was in making your choice. When you notice these things, and it takes a few years, I feel you are onto how to make robust decisions when it comes to choosing your career. May it be veterinarian!
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