Do you love animals and dream of a career that will let you work with them every day? If so, you’ve probably thought of a few animal-related jobs you might like, including becoming a veterinary assistant. It can be difficult to know where to start, though, and if you’ve done any job hunting at all, you’ve learned what a competitive field it is. You’ve also probably realized that earning a veterinarian assistant certification could give you a much better chance of landing a job.
If you have searched every keyword you can think of and still don’t know how to find a vet assistant school near you, it may be because there isn’t one–at least not a brick-and-mortar school. Even in a large metropolitan area, not everyone has a career training school nearby, and not every career school offers an in-person vet assistant program.
Maybe you Googled “vet assistant schools near me” and all the programs that popped up were online schools. You may have immediately assumed that an online school would be problematic because getting real-life experience would be impossible with an online course.
You are correct in thinking that learning a career like vet assisting demands hand-on training. Animal Behavior College (ABC), originally founded in 1998, realized a long time ago that students need real-world experience. To succeed, ABC had to find a way to offer its students plenty of time working in a professional setting with real animals.
Animal Behavior College has a passion for helping animal lovers find their ideal careers, and they came up with a solution to the hands-on experience conundrum. The answer? An “externship.”
The ABC Veterinary Assistant Online Course
The way ABC’s vet assistant program works, students enroll and can immediately begin working on stage 1 of the 11-stage curriculum. After completion of the online portion of the curriculum, students embark on the externship stage.
If you’re wondering how long the program takes to complete, a self-motivated student should be able to get certified in as little as 12 months. The school has a great reputation for providing support as students work their way through the program.
The curriculum covers all the requirements you should know as a vet assistant. The first nine stages of the program are completed online and include the following skills:
- Office etiquette and hospital procedures
- Animal restraint
- Examination room procedures
- Pharmacy and pharmacology
- Surgical preparation and assisting
- Small animal nursing
- Laboratory procedures
- Radiology and ultrasound imaging
There is also a very helpful stage that teaches career building skills like resume preparation. Knowing how to present yourself to potential employers can really help you land a job in your chosen field.
Once these stages have been successfully completed, it is finally time to move on to the externship.
The ABC Externship Provides Real-World Training
ABC partners with thousands of mentors in all 50 U.S. states and in every Canadian province. Students in the veterinary assistant program will be paired with a local mentor in a nearby facility. These may be in vet clinics, small animal hospitals, humane societies, and other facilities that offer veterinary care.
The externship requires 80 hours of unpaid work with a mentor and gives students a chance to practice what they learned in the course of their online studies.
Best of Both Worlds
Getting certified to become a veterinary assistant through Animal Behavior College really gives you the best of both worlds: learning in the comfort of your own home and getting valuable experience. Being able to work online can be a lifesaver if you are trying to start a new career while simultaneously holding down a full-time job and dealing with all the other responsibilities that come with being an adult. It allows you to manage your time in a way that suits your schedule, and online learning is more affordable when compared to most in-person options.
If you would like more information about the ABC Veterinary Assistant Program, call 800-795-3294 to speak to an admissions counselor.