How To Become A Veterinarian Essay Example

Many believe that you need 10,000 hours of practice before you have mastered a skill, but this is not true in all situations. The 10,000 hour rule states that to be a master of your specific sport, profession, or hobby you need to have at least 10,000 hours of attentive practice or early specialization. The author used a class of pianist for an example as they all started around the age of five and as they got older the few that practiced more during a week were better and more likely to have a future in piano. While Range proved that you don’t need early specialization or 10,000 hours to be a master using Roger Federer as, “He dabbled in skiing, wrestling, swimming, and skateboarding. He played basketball, handball, tennis, table tennis, badminton over his neighbor's fence, and soccer at school”(Epstein) in his younger age and did not get serious about tennis until later in his life. After he got serious he was a master because all the other sports he played helped him with agility and tons of other skills. Becoming a veterinarian is hard and does need specialization so the 10,000 hour rule would be applied when pursuing the career.

Becoming a veterinarian is a mastery all in itself. The broad term includes anyone that treats injuries and illnesses of pets and other animals; this includes the people you see on tv, the farm vets you may see on the internet, and the people you take your pet to. There are many things required to become a veterinarian such as Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. After you go through at least 4 years of college you then have to apply for a license to practice in the United states. Depending on what type of animal you want to specialize in, you may need to go back for more school as you could work with pets, ranch or farm animals, or just making sure the animals aren’t being harmed by testing animal products and giving vaccines.

The 10,000 hour rule applies to becoming a veterinarian as they need many skills and a certain amount of knowledge. Each skill or piece of information needs a level of specialization; you don’t need to spend 10 years learning about each one but all together they will add up. For instance, you need to know the anatomy of different animals and the behaviors of those animals to keep yourself safe and tell when an animal becomes uncomfortable. Prescribing the correct medicine and knowing what surgery to perform is also very important, as you are still a kind of doctor. On top of all the medical needs of your patients you also need to know how to handle their owners and be able to make sure they know what is wrong with their pet; the owners need to know what you plan on doing as building trust with the owners is a very important part of being a veterinarian.

A lot of time goes into becoming a veterinarian as there are lots of requirements and ways to become one. There are plenty of ways to get experience as an intern along with taking college courses. When applying for a college course, there is not a set path to take; some classes give more information than others do but they are not all the same path. Veterinarian students may take multiple different courses to get a little bit from each one or they may take different courses from their future colleagues if they want to specialize in a specific field. You could also volunteer or work with animals in another job before deciding on becoming a veterinarian to get experiences as you can learn many things from watching animals interact with one another in different settings. 

Learning how to become a veterinarian would be counted in the wicked learning environment as not every example is the same. When studying to become a veterinarian you will learn that you will not have two alike patients. If they have the same disease their symptoms may look different along with subtle things in their anatomy. The animal's history may also affect what you prescribe to them as it will change if they may be allergic to certain ingredients. You may also not get results from tests for long periods of time and it may be a very stressful time if an animal’s life is on the line. With all that being said, you need to know how to deal with all possible situations and everything you could possibly do.

There is so much specialization that goes into becoming a veterinarian that the 10,000 rule would be the best method to use as it  would cover everything. You cannot dabble in things to help you become a veterinarian as there are too many details; even if you specialize later in life you are now behind. You need to start in college or earlier as the average college student spends seventeen hours a week studying and about twenty hours a week in class, which adds up to 7,696 hours in four years. Even after four years, many students are still not ready to be in the workforce. To really understand their job, veterinarians need 10,000 hours or more.