Things I'd Tell Every Incoming Vet Student with Brandon Duncan

Are you ready to get into it?

Yes, I am.

Well, to start, I'm going to start with something that I think is super important and it sounds super broad and vague and kind of cliche, but I think it's important.

And that is sometimes you have to get it wrong before you get it right.

And I think that this is something that a lot of veterinary students struggle with because we're all kind of recovering perfectionists.

Like we come in and we want to have everything figured out immediately.

But that's not what vet school is about.

Exactly.

Vet school is about learning and growing and literally becoming the doctor that you're destined to be.

And in order to become that, you have to get some things wrong.

Yeah, 100%.

I don't know if you've had this experience, but so many times I remember things that I've gotten wrong on exams way more than things I get right.

Yeah.

It's almost like we, if we get something right, we just like, okay, cool.

Bye.

It just leaves our mind.

We don't think about it much, but we really harbor on those ideas that we got wrong.

And I do wonder why that's the case because we spend so much time and you don't want to just remember what you got wrong.

But I think there's value in that lesson because when you got something wrong, you probably worked a lot harder to figure out why it was wrong.

and to rework your understanding about that.

So that's something that I for sure struggled with within my first year of school.

Yeah, totally.

So when you're coming into veterinary school, we'd encourage you to really see getting things wrong as an opportunity for growth and for learning.

And if you can do that, your life will be a lot easier.

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