This week's topic: Tell us about an experience that made you doubt your ability or desire to go into vet med. How did you end up overcoming that doubt?

My biggest self-doubt came early in my junior year of college. First semester of freshman year, I was on the Dean's List (just made it, but I wasn't complaining). With that confidence under my belt, I assumed I could continue along as I always had and so I did. After a couple more semesters (with increasingly poorer grades and a couple of Ws thrown in for good measure that I wasn't fully aware of), I started reserach applying to vet school - my ever-present goal. I looked at requirements at many different schools and finally got around to checking my cumulative GPA.

I can't even describe the bottom-dropping-out feeling I got. My GPA was awful. I think it was something like a 2.6 when I checked the first time. Needless to say, I panicked. Every class seemed insurmountable, I had no idea what I was going to do with my life now that vet med seemed a very remote possibility and I felt immense guilt for frittering away my undergraduate education. I had already begun working at the lab animal place and, thoroughly in love with the field, I decided that I would forget the vet school dream and get my technician certifications (ALAT, LAT, LATG).

Everyone I talked to encouraged me not to give up. My co-workers at the lab animal place were the most actively supportive (although my dad gave me a pretty good pep talk too about not being afraid of a subject like chemistry...) and to this day, I do not know what I would've done without their support, encouragement and love. They believed in me when I didn't believe in myself. It gave me just enough boost to care, and I poured myself into studying. When I saw my supervisor over this past winter break, and she told me just how damn proud she is of me and how she had always wanted to be a vet but thought she was too stupid and that she was living her dreams through my accomplishments...wow. I owe those people everything, and it motivates me to do well in school, even when courses are tough and schedules are grueling.

Not to sound like a cheeseball, but don't give up. The road ahead may be long and difficult, but if you want it, you will get it.