e-portfolio for VME6819- Principles of Leadership in Animal Shelters Fall 2024 at the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine
Emily Wecas
Welcome to my e-portfolio for VME6819- Principles of Leadership in Animal Shelters Fall 2024 at the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine. This portfolito includes my self-assesment, SMART goals, and action-plan going forward. Throughout the course of this semester I have thouroughly enjoyed learning more about myself and my attributes that will make me a successful leader.
Self - Assesment
​Throughout the course of this semester, I have developed new insights into who i am as a person, my personality style, and how these relate to my ability to be a successful shelter leader. In all assesments, I have determined that I have a strong desire to help others and ensure they have all they need in order to complete their tasks effectively. This empathy that I have is a wonderful strength as a current veterinary assistant/technician as I am able to understand what my veterinarian needs before they even ask for it. However, my incredible sense of empathy can sometimes get the best of me and can make it easy for ill-intentioned individuals to manipulate me at time. I believe this is one of the reasons I have a general introverted nature, as I am not always trusting of others and their intentions. As a shelter leader, I will need to determine how to continue to hold space for my empathy to continue to be compassionate to others while also protecting myself from being overwhelmed by my emotions and desire to help others.
This course has also reiterated things that I already know about myself. I have always been an incredibly self-aware person and recently I have been working on increasing my emotional intelligence. As a shelter leader, it is critical to be both self aware of your own needs while having the emotional intelligence to lead individuals working in an extremely emotionally charged field. I am hopeful that the knowledge I have of myself and my sometimes overwhelming emotions, will lend itself useful when working with a team in the future. In my years of experience, I have worked with veterinarians of many diverse backgrounds. The more self aware and emotionally intelligent the veterinarians were, the better experience I had working for them. As a future veterinarian, I hope to continue to use my strengths in empathy, compassion, self-awareness, and emotional intelligence to create a healthy work environment for all involved.
I have included the results of a couple diagnostic surveys taken this semester in the next section. From my results I understand that I am a highly empathetic and agreeable person who is generally open to new experiences and can go with the flow. I am hopeful that these attributes will be essential in my success as a future shelter leader.
Diagnostic Survey Results
Clifton Strengths Finder
1. Empathy
2. Restorative
3. Ideation
4. Adaptability
5. Developer
Big 5 Personality
Extroversion: 7
Neuroticism: 62
Agreeableness: 77
Concientiousness: 48
Openness to Experience: 63
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SMART Goals
In this course we discussed setting SMART goals for ourselves, or goals that are signigicant, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. My current goals are:
1. Enroll in an AVMA accredited veterinary school to start in August 2025 to pursue becoming a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine.
2. Upon obtaining my degree, I will work full-time for a non-profit animal shelter for at least 10 years.
Action Plan
In the past, I have struggled to reach my goals due to the extremely competetive natue of veterinary school acceptantce. I have applied and been waitlisted the past few years citing my lacking interview skills and below average grades in a few courses. I am excited to announce that I have already been accepted to one school this round of applications and currently have 2 interviews with other schools within the coming months. This time, I am prepared to practice my answers to potential interview questions beforehand and have enlisted the help of friends and family to aid in my preparation. Over the past year, I have learned so much about myself and my specific needs as I have come to terms with my neurodivergence. I am hopeful that I will be able to answer questions more confidently and with better clarity in order to convince my interviewers that I am exactly the student they are looking for to enroll in their program.
Once enrolling in an accredited program, I know I will have to continue to work hard to keep up with my studies. I have developed a wonderful support system at home, but I will need to establish a core group of supporters at whatever institution I decide to attend (or am accetped to). It will be imperative that I develope a relationship with a counselor on campus to help me maintain my mental health as I know stress has had a large impact on me in the past. I also know that creating and sticking to a healthy routine will be extremely important for me. My neurodivergence requires me to keep a more steady routine day-to-day in order to be successful. I must also establish a routine to keep me active between lectures and find ways to network and make connections with my fellow classmates. I plan to choose a school that will allow me to gain as much hands-on experience as possible as I am a kinesthetic learner and learn best by doing. Veterinary school will be unlike anything I have ever tackled in my life, but I am hopeful that I will be successful in my studies so long as I establish healthy routines early on and stick to them.
Student loans and paying for my education has been an area of stress for me since deciding to persue the DVM route. Luckily, pursuing shelter medicine upon graduation will allow me to participate in the public service loan forgiveness plan provided by the United States. To qualify for this plan, I will need to work for a non-profit or government company for at least 10 years while making minimum loan payments. My plan upon graduation is to become employed by an established non-profit shelter. I am hopeful that my background and additional education in shelter medicine will lead me to success in the field. I have also toyed with the idea of developing my own shelter or assisting a struggling one to get back on their feet. I currently live in Kansas City and I am acutely aware of the need for another municipal, open-admission shelter in the area. I believe that my work in this course and the other shelter medicine courses I have taken will set me up to be a successful leader in the field. For maybe the first time in my life, I am excited about my future and look forward to continuing my education and starting my career as a shelter veterinarian in the next 5 years.