It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet

I think being a vet could be a pretty great job, so I briefly checked it out. Interestingly, it seems like it is really tough - not because of the difficulty of the program per se, but because there are only 5 vet schools in Canada, and they are very selective. Sounds like a policy failure.

According to Gemini, to get in to a program, you are looking at:

- an undergrad degree

- 85% - 90% GPA

- hundreds to thousands of hours of experience in a clinic and with "large animals"

- a bunch of interviews potentially putting you at the mercy of your ability to bullshit

- after that, 4 years in vet school at $20k / year

Sounds worth it, though: "Canada is currently facing a massive shortage of veterinarians, meaning you are virtually guaranteed a high-paying job immediately upon graduation."

I wonder if that is for the pet market or more like James Herriott type work?

Fun fact: many vet clinics in North America, including mine, are owned by Mars, the chocolate bar company. They also make a ton of money off pet food, and, Wrigley's gum. It's a private / family company with $50B revenues.

I also read once that vets have one of the highest suicide rates. But I also read that about Denmark, which also has a very high happiness rate. I guess vets in Denmark don't stand much of a chance, but, at least they are happy ????

---

It I could live my life over, these are probably the jobs I would do, in this order:

1. the one I have/had, pre-AI. Not looking so good post-AI.

2. paramedic.

3. power engineer (eg. BC Hydro, nuclear plants)

4. something in aviation operations, but not pilot. I want to say ATC, but if there were ever a job whose time has come to be 100% automated, that is it (the only reason it hasn't yet is because the tech is so hard to change, and, it's not a big enough industry to attract the attention required).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Change of Venue

Well, I have my doubts that ANYBODY will read this, but here I am: my old blog at progressdeveloper.wordpress.com has become "read only" for reasons that are beyond my control and that I will not bore you with. I might try to scrape it all and stick it somewhere else, but I doubt it. I will probably just let it live in the never-never land of 99.999999% useless information content until someone at Wordpress decides to retire it. (OK, I will bore you just a little. No, I did not lose the password. But they won't let me in anymore because I don't have access to it's registered email address anymore. I am annoyed at Wordpress, enough to try this platform instead [it's part of Google], but not enough to rant about it. These things happen).
Read more

Arrived

 Touchdown in YZP, quick shopping trip in a small Super Valu adjacent to YZP, 20 minute ferry ride (we were 2nd last car on - ferry is tiny and only runs 1x/hour). AirBnb is about 30 seconds drive from Skidegate ferry and is super nice. 3 BR and I think just 1 bath. Huge kitchen. Great view. I think we will be very comfortable. David H is, as expected, unbelievably pleasant and quite fun, but on top of that, seems to know about all sorts of topics that I barely know about and interest me to a greater or lesser extent. How UK's time in India ended. India v Pakistan. Supreme Court in the UK. Whether judges should be elected. He has lived in Africa. He also is super into art as both an observer and a creator. I think the trip will be at least quite good based solely on his involvement!
Read more

Haida Gwaii Part 2

Here I am at YVR Gate C32, waiting for our flight to Sandspit. We're spending 9 nights (7 on HG, one on a ferry, and one in Port Hardy); we being my oldest sister Janet, and a family friend, David (yet another David! Good grief). As you might recall, I went to HG with ex-work-David in May or so of last year. On that trip we were only on the north (Graham) island. I wasn't able to accompany ex-work-David on his zodiac tour of the south (Moresby) island, where, apparently, resides all the "indigenous stuff". (The north island is pleasant but not all that different from "our" gulf islands, at least in my opinion). So I'm going back to fill in the gap of my HG experience with the south island. I'm not hugely interested in Haida art (I think David is, and Janet for sure is), but I'm somewhat interested in FN topics and trying to do my bit to improve my knowledge / empathy towards "them".
Read more