Synopsis / Reflection

Going into freshmen year of college, I had no idea what I wanted to do when I got older. To me, that part of my life was too far in the future to think about. When everyone around me suddenly knew exactly what they wanted and had a plan to accomplish it, I started thinking more about what exactly I wanted to do. For the longest time, the only thing I knew was that I wanted to work with animals. Before writing this blog, I didn’t know of any occupations working with animals except for ordinary veterinarians, and while there is nothing wrong with being a veterinarian for domestic animals, I knew that it wasn’t for me. What I didn’t know though, was that there are so many more possibilities out there. The options are endless, so I picked one that sounded interesting to me personally, wildlife veterinary medicine, and used this blog to explore it. 

At first, writing the blog posts was a challenge for me because I didn’t know much about veterinarian medicine, let alone wildlife veterinarian medicine. Not having any previous knowledge, classes or experience made it very difficult for me to write certain posts that involved physically going out into my field. However, posts involving controversies and especially the free posts were the easiest for me. Free posts were simple because of how easy it was for me to find interesting things to write about in my field. Animals and the people working with animals do extraordinary things, and all it takes is a simple google search to find it. 
As I spent time researching my field, I realized how much this job would be great for me and I think it is really important for someone to know every aspect, positive and negative, about their field before they decide they want to spend the rest of their lives in it. I found numerous amounts of positives including different organizations, like the gorilla doctors and elephant sanctuaries. These veterinarians spend their time helping animals that most people would over look. Some risk their lives and some spend the majority of their time away from their families, but they still do it. The more of these organizations and links I found the more excited I got, and the more I wanted to pursue this career. 
     However, I knew that nothing is perfect, so I figured this occupation must have a few negative aspects of it, and of course, like everything else, it does. I found articles explaining the hardships of working in the wild and the amount of debt in schooling alone is enough to turn anyone away. That being said, by learning the negatives about this field, I realized how passionate and dedicated anyone who remains in veterinary medicine must be to go through all of it. To those who truly want to be a vet, or work with animals, it’s not about the money, it’s about loving their jobs and helping those animals who cant help themselves. Realizing that I would one day be surrounded by people like that, just added on to my excitement and made me more driven to become a wildlife veterinarian. 
     This blog not only gave me a reason to start thinking about my future, but also it helped me to get excited for it. Wildlife veterinarian medicine was a spur of the moment choice for me, and throughout research and blog posts I decided that it may actually be the perfect career field for me. One day I hope to be apart of an organization similar to those I found for this project.