School is scary

I haven't been in school for more than 10 years. My official completion date was 12/19/98. I finished classroom work in June of 98 and completed my internship with the Milwaukee County Zoo from Oct-Dec.

When I went to school to be a Vet Tech, it wasn't by accident I ended up in a 2 year associates program. I wasn't a big fan of school. I went to school straight through (no summers off) and completed my courses with a 3.41 GPA in 2 years.

Then I jumped into the real world. I remember at my first job I made a whopping $9 an hour. Yup, I could have made more working at McDonalds.

When I was laid off in November, I had to seriously consider if I wanted to go back to work for a small animal practice (or mixed, or large animal). Basically do I want to go to work for another vet clinic. My first thought was, I was burned out from the veterinary practice. I still loved the animals, and the medicine. But I was a little burned out from wrestling big dogs that didn't want to cooperate, cats that wanted to eat me and owners that thought because we were in the veterinary field, we were ripping them off by charging $25 just to look in a microscope. I was sick of defending my skills and abilities to people that thought I must not know anything if I was "just the technician, and not a doctor." In short, I didn't want to go back.

I did apply to a few clinics, hoping that if nothing else, at least I could fall back on something I already know. I submitted online resumes for at least 40 places. Some of them would utilize my tech/medicine skills, others were more the desk job types. I have never had a desk job. I figured Nick finishes school in 2 1/2 years, that's as long as I HAVE to have a job, at least, a job if I didn't like it. After a month, lots of resumes and not much response except "someone else is more qualified" Nick and I started talking about my returning to school. We had talked about in the future doing mission trips (or just ministry type work) where we can utilize our medical training. I realized that I would need human medical training to accomplish that. Someday I was going to get some kind of human medical training to be able to do that kind of mission work.

Someday is now. In December I started talking to a few schools and looking into a CNA program and the MA program. It seemed that the CNA program would work. I could get certified after a course of 74 hours. Century offered it, it wasn't that expensive and I could get a job in that field and then do other things if I choose. Then after careful consideration, I decided that being a CNA would be like being a kennel girl. Yes, it would pay much better than a kennel girl, but I was going to pay money for a course to do the manual labor and icky stuff. Not that I am above manual labor, but that was one of the reasons I didn't want to go back to the vet clinic. So I rethought my options. I began the long, hoop jumping process to get registered for classes at Globe University in Woodbury. My first class is tomorrow (Tues) at 6pm. I have class on Tues and Wed at 6pm. I will be taking Introduction to patient care sciences and composition.

The nice thing about this program, is I am transferring in credits from an AA program and should be able to get an associates degree with little more than the courses needed to get the diploma. This means if I go full time (which I did not start with) I could be done in a year. If I go part time, I should be done in less than 2 two years. I also hope to test out of a few of the courses. If I test out of all 4 courses I would like to, that is 15 credits I don't have to take, or pay for. Yup, that would be awesome!

So, while all of this was going on, the week of Christmas I got a phone call from one of the places I submitted a resume. I set up an interview for Tues the 30th. I think the interview went really well. I am hopeful that this position will work out. I want to have a job and feel productive again. It sure would be nice! We should know by tomorrow if I make the next step.

I got a call that same Tuesday from another person. I had called, following up with a job posting I saw. I will be setting something up this week if this job doesn't pan out.

So, tomorrow classes start for me, and I am a little excited and a little nervous at the same time. I am also a little nervous about adding student loans for me into the mix.