The veterinary medical field is a bunch of broken people trying to fix patients that can’t speak to us. This a mantra that I tell myself daily as a licensed veterinary technician as I continue my education for my master’s degree. This field is the most rewarding and most heartbreaking at the same time. We see animals come in at their very best and then we have to help them out when they are at their worst. The hardest part of any veterinary professionals job is convincing owners that tests or medications are crucial to saving their pets life. No one warned me about the fact that I would have to teach clients daily about how to best manage their pets heath concerns while also navigating their own issues as well. The veterinary field is divided when it comes to breeding because it’s continually being done by people who don’t know exactly what they’re doing. Unfortunately, we see the sides of breeding that are more often than not done only for profit and not for bettering the chances of a specific breed. Don’t get me started on the amount of doodles that I see daily coming in with behavioral or health issues that normally their purebred counterparts wouldn’t have. The exacerbation of these issues from purebred “doodles” is becoming increasingly common. For myself, I currently breed longhaired dachshunds and will only breed after testing them for a multiple of problems. One of the biggest issues that I test my adults for is for their temperaments. It is absolutely important to test all breeding dogs for common breed diseases, confirmation, etc., but I find it troubling that more people don’t test the temperaments of their breeding dogs as well. I’m hoping in the coming years that breeding for desirable temperaments will also become as common as testing for illnesses. I understand that there is an influx in dogs being bred because they’re pretty and the owners just want them to have one litter and I feel like that’s where the biggest disconnect is in the veterinary profession. We’re seeing an influx in undesirable animals breeding and not enough of the animals being well bred and well managed by responsible people. This goes very much along with the first sentence of my essay. As a veterinary professional, myself and many of my colleagues have been burned by many of these so called “breeders” in the past who are nothing more than back yard breeding. These people are typically the ones bring us the broken and abused puppies and adults and expecting us to fix their mistakes for nothing so that they may make a quick buck. My hope is that veterinary professionals and responsible breeders can eventually rally together for the betterment of all canines.

I lost my younger sister in 2021. I never realized the impact of losing someone so important until I lost her. Her and I were two sides of the same coin. She was light and happy opposed to my dark and withdrawn. She had a carefree outlook to life whereas I have to have a calculated plan of action for all that I do. We did not always get along. She was the baby of the family and oftentimes would have things given to her whereas I had to work for them. I was always very jealous of her relationship with my parents because I was always expected to be more of a “grownup” and she was allowed to be a kid. After she passed away, I began seeing a counselor so I could learn to deal with my grief in a healthy way. I’ve written letters to her, gone hiking in places she would’ve loved to have seen, and tired to mirror parts of my life after her carefree outlook. Her favorite color is yellow. My family now includes yellow objects whenever we celebrate anything so that we can have her with us too. For this past Halloween, we bought a yellow pumpkin and each spring we try to plant at least one yellow flower. Whenever I drive to work, I don’t change the station if a song comes on the reminds me of her. I try to constantly remember her and her smile in everything that I do. My sister didn’t pursue a higher education unlike me. She’d want me to continue on with any of my dreams regardless of where they might take me.

I lost my younger sister in 2021. I never realized the impact of losing someone so important until I lost her. Her and I were two sides of the same coin. She was light and happy opposed to my dark and withdrawn. She had a carefree outlook to life whereas I have to have a calculated plan of action for all that I do. We did not always get along. She was the baby of the family and oftentimes would have things given to her whereas I had to work for them. I was always very jealous of her relationship with my parents because I was always expected to be more of a “grownup” and she was allowed to be a kid. After she passed away, I began seeing a counselor so I could learn to deal with my grief in a healthy way. I’ve written letters to her, gone hiking in places she would’ve loved to have seen, and tired to mirror parts of my life after her carefree outlook. Her favorite color is yellow. My family now includes yellow objects whenever we celebrate anything so that we can have her with us too. For this past Halloween, we bought a yellow pumpkin and each spring we try to plant at least one yellow flower. Whenever I drive to work, I don’t change the station if a song comes on the reminds me of her. I try to constantly remember her and her smile in everything that I do. My sister didn’t pursue a higher education unlike me. She’d want me to continue on with any of my dreams regardless of where they might take me.

Being a non-traditional student with a family has put my college career on hold at times. I’ve had to make sure that my children and family are take care of first before I could consider continuing my education. Being the first person in my family to hold a Bachelors degree has been an honor. However, I’ve always had a passion for continuing to learn and grow myself so that I may continue to provide for my children. Obtaining my Master’s degree is important to me because I want to continue to grow in my career within the veterinary medical field. The program that I will be going through at Lincoln Memorial University is the first of its kind for licensed veterinary technicians and may potentially open up even more opportunities with the field. I’m very excited and humbled to be apart of the first group of veterinary professionals to be accepted and enrolled in this program. My colleagues and I are unsure of the possibilities that may arise from obtaining our Master’s degree, but for myself, continuing my education was an easy decision. Hopefully, I can help future veterinary professionals to make the decision to continue with their education goals. More important though, I want to show my children and the generations after me that they can be a non-traditional student and have some hiccups in their lives, and still be able to obtain any goal that they set for themselves. My mom never completed high school but was able to obtain her GED through the military. As her oldest daughter, I’ve always felt that no matter the circumstances, that I should continue to be a role model for my younger siblings. That goal is even more important to me since I have my own children as well. The opportunity to obtain this memorial scholarship is not lost on me and I greatly appreciate the consideration of everyone involved with this process. Any amount of help that any student can receive from a scholarship is a blessing to us all. I’d be forever grateful to be able to carry on that legacy through any help that I can receive for my continued education. Being a non-traditional student, I understand the sacrifice that most people have to go through to even get to this point which makes receiving a scholarship even more of a humbling experience. Thank you for the consideration and for the opportunity to apply.