Meghan Wadsworth

Audience Analysis Heuristic

Audience is me.
I should go to Vet. School because the pros outweigh the
cons.

Audience/Self: The Environment of the Audience

1) What is his/her physical, social, and economic status?
(age, environment, health, ethnic ties,
class, income)
 18-year-old Caucasian female living in Logan, Utah from
West Jordan, Utah. Pretty average health. Parents are middle
class with an income of ~$118,000 yearly. My personal
income is probably under $500 a month.

2) What is his/her educational and cultural experience? Especially with certain patterns of
written discourse?
 In the first semester of college, but had experience with lots of honors and concurrent
enrollment courses throughout high school. Hasn’t had a lot of cultural experience other
than your standard American exposure. Not familiar with written discourse other than the
basic high school argumentative paper.
3) What are his/her ethical concerns and hierarchy of values? (home, family, job success,
religion, money, car, social acceptance)
 Most to least: Family, Job Success, Money, Home, Car, Social Acceptance, and Religion.
4) What are his/her common myths and prejudices?
 Before research began: believed that vet school was impossible to get into, extremely
hard courses, and unbearable debts.
Audience/Subject: The Subject Interpreted by the Audience
1) How much does the reader know about what I want to say?
 Because we are the same person, we know everything because we both researched it.
2) What is the opinion of the reader about my subject?
 Always wanted to go to veterinary school
3) How strong is that opinion?
 Fairly strong since it’s a lifelong dream
4) How willing is he/she to act on that opinion?
 Very willing to do so, has spent whole life working towards it
5) Why does he/she react the way he/she does?
 Always wants animals to be treated fairly/correctly. Hardworking, strives to achieve goals.
Always wanted to be a veterinarian, so there will be a bias towards going to vet school.
Audience/Writer: The Relationship of the Audience and the Writer
1) What is the reader's knowledge and attitude about me?
 Knows everything about me.
2) What are our shared experiences, attitudes, interests, values, myths, prejudices?
 Everything is the same, however, there has been a lot learned since the beginning of this
project.
3) What is my purpose(s)/aim(s) in addressing this audience?
 My purpose is to convince and give valid reasons why I should go to vet school.
4) Is this an appropriate audience for this subject?
 Very appropriate audience because the subject is a question that dictates my future.
5) What is the role I wish to assign to the audience?
 The audience will have the role of contemplating and taking action based off of the facts
given in the paper.
6) What role do I want to assume for the audience?
 I will assume the role of fact gatherer and informer.
Audience/Form: The Genre and Strategies Most Promising for Effective Communication
1) What are the best methods the writer can use to achieve cooperation/ persuasion/identification
with the audience?
 I believe that a classical approach will be the most effective since the audience is on the
fence about the topic.
2) What pattern/mode/development is appropriate?
 I am thinking the paper will come out more of reason 1, counter argument 1, reason 2,
counter argument 2, etc. However, I think that there will be a lot more of me rebutting
counterarguments which makes it its own reason.
3) What tone?
 A very casual tone because I am writing to myself.
4) What diction, level of diction?
 I would say maybe a mix between neutral and informal because I will be writing to
myself, and I wouldn’t need to talk super formally to myself.
5) What level of syntactic sophistication?
 I frankly have no idea what this means. I think it revolves around grammar and basic
sentence set up. I will write a pretty neutral paper in those terms, nothing fancy or over
the top or anything, but it also won’t be just gibberish.
 Dr. Wadsworth, DVM

Imagine waking up and looking forward to going to a job that you enjoy and love. This

situation depends from person to person, but for you, your heart longs to become a Doctor of

Veterinary Medicine. How does one achieve their dream? Is it possible? Can you afford it?

These were the common questions that flooded your mind whenever you thought of your future.

Can you graduate from veterinary school? Will you be able to afford the ever-growing tuition?

After careful research and consideration, you decided that you should go to veterinary school

because the pros simply outweigh the cons.

Going to veterinary school has always been a dream of yours. Ever since you were little,

you always surrounded yourself with animals; by caring for them, loving them, and trying to

help them with what little knowledge you had at the time. As you’ve grown throughout the years,

you have had many opportunities that have further nourished and developed your childhood

dream. After starting college at Utah State University (USU), you were exposed to a lot of

different and new things. This new environment really made you second guess yourself in many

different areas, but the main uncertainty was whether or not veterinary school would be a

possibility for you. During your Animal, Dairy, & Veterinary Sciences (ADVS) Advising course,

you learned the truth. Veterinary school students take 19 – 22 credit hours per semester and must

pay about $100,000 total for all four years if they qualify for in-state tuition (Vanderwall). Why

is it that whenever one thinks of vet school, or even medical school, we usually think of all the

cons?

Why is it so easy to forget about the positive aspects of graduate schools? The list goes

on and on, the first main positive aspect of going to veterinary school is job satisfaction. Job

satisfaction, in your terms, is not dreading to go to work, getting paid well, and having fun daily.
I strongly believe that once you achieve your long-term goal of becoming a veterinarian, all your

criteria for job satisfaction will be checked off. There even has been research done that shows

that veterinarians have a higher job satisfaction compared to veterinary technicians and kennel

assistants (Sears). Which further backs up the choice to go to graduate school to become a

Doctor of Veterinary Medicine rather than settling as a veterinary technician or a kennel assistant

which requires no college.

Another important factor of job satisfaction is being part of a good team. Veterinarians

spend every day working in a team with veterinary technicians and assistants. They need to be

able to be a good leader, good communicator, and be able to create solutions and act with a team.

Throughout your high school career, you were heavily involved in several clubs as an officer

which has helped you to strengthen those soft skills. Being able to function well in a team leads

to job satisfaction. Malinda Larkin published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical

Association that, “The findings of the present study indicated that team effectiveness had a

strong effect on psychosocial health and work contentment in veterinary practices” (vol. 240, no.

3). Your psychosocial health and work contentment are also very important factors in your

definition of job satisfaction.

Even though I believe that you would have high job satisfaction in this profession,

veterinarians are one of the main occupations known to have a high suicide rate. “In this survey,

approximately 1 in 11 veterinarians had serious psychological distress and 1 in 6 experienced

suicidal ideations since leaving veterinary school” (Nett, et al.). There are many known factors

that can lead to these ideations and distress. The most commonly known include: the day-to-day

stress of juggling all the daily tasks a veterinarian needs to do, the emotional distress of putting
down an animal, and when veterinarians are put in a situation where the animal needs treatment,

but the owner cannot afford it.

Even though these statistics can seem very daunting, the very same article discusses how

only 1% attempted suicide. Even though the ideal would be no one attempted or had ideations,

1% of all graduates is a very low amount. Specifically, to you, there is no history of mental

illness in your family, and you have never personally dealt with issues of that type. Even though

this is a high concern for most, it most likely will not be an issue for you personally. You also

interned at a veterinary clinic one summer and was there to experience many things with the

veterinarians. You were able to cope with the putting down of animals by realizing that they will

be in a better place and are no longer in pain. Knowing this fact is very helpful and it will be able

to help you in the future when you encounter those situations again.

The need for veterinarians is ever growing, thus creating many job opportunities.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the job outlook from 2018-2028 is 18%, which is

much faster than the occupational average of 5% (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). This means

that there will be many job opportunities arising in the next ten years with not a lot of people to

fill it. So, when you graduate from vet school, it won’t be an instance where you have the degree

with no job which can happen in many other majors. Common stereotypes of majors that leave

students in that predicament include fine arts, theatre, religious studies, and the list can go on and

on.

But why is the demand for veterinarians on the rise? An ever-growing global population

that goes hand in hand with the booming pet-care industry is what’s to blame. CNBC Journalist

Kate Rogers said that the “demand is so high that vet students often have two job offers when

they graduate” (Rogers). Hearing that fact should be even more inspiring for you to go to
veterinary school because it helps to create a sense of security for when you invest in the journey

ahead of you. Especially knowing that the job outlook in this profession is nearly 4 times as fast

compared to other professions, it leads to the idea that there are a lot of students out there with a

degree and no job. You are very lucky that what you are choosing to go into is not only your

dream job but is also booming with opportunities and will continue to grow.

Three thousand students graduate from U.S. Colleges of Veterinary Medicine, what

guarantees you a job? (AVMA) As explained earlier, this can happen to many different majors,

but it’s not only the degree that gets you a job. How do you know that you would even be a good

veterinarian? A veterinarian needs good soft skills that include teamwork, communication skills,

and good leadership skills. These skills must also go hand in hand with the hard skills that come

with being a veterinarian. You must be able to successfully do surgeries, vaccinations,

diagnostics, etc.

It is true that it is impossible to guarantee that you will secure a job, however, many

veterinarians will open their own practices, thus creating more jobs. In 2018, there were between

28,000 and 32,000 vet clinics in the U.S. with only 3,500 of those being corporate owned. This

means that the vast majority of practices are privately owned (Nolen). This increases the chances

of you securing a job as a veterinarian either at your own practice, a private owned practice, or a

company owned practice. On the topic of hard skills, you will be taught vigorously during

veterinary school and won’t be able to pass the licensing exam unless you know what you are

doing. With soft skills, however, these are skills that will develop throughout many experiences

in your life. You were fortunate to be involved in many extra-curriculars during high school,

which have shaped you into the person you are today. You should consider yourself a motivated

learner who is always looking to improve.

 Veterinarians get paid a lot for what they do. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,

the 2018 median pay was $93,830 per year, and $45.11 per hour. This of course varies from state

to state, with Utah’s average salary being $94,000 (Sokanu). While both of these numbers seem

similar, they are very different because of the fact that median and average pay are both very

different things. Median is just the middle pay when salaries are ranked in ascending order, this

can produce a “better” looking number, when in reality the pay can vary greatly. Average, on the

other hand, takes into account all salaries and produces a more realistic number. Since the

average produces a more realistic salary, it is a better number to look at to understand what is

really happening in today’s economy.

Those were just the averages for all types of veterinarians; however, they can be

separated into three main categories: companion animal vets, food animal vets, and equine vets.

You want to become a companion animal veterinarian, which works with your domestic dogs,

cats, and pocket pets (ferrets, hamsters, etc.). Mary Hope Kramer pulled information from the

AVMA Journal that enforces the fact that small animal vets start at a mean salary of $87,000.

This is the highest in comparison to food animal vets with a mean salary of $75,000, and equine

vets on the lower end which have an average salary of just above $50,000. Mixed practice vets

are those who deal with both large and companion animals, they come in at an average salary of

$75,000 (Kramer).

Even though the pay is super high, so is the debt. It will be impossible to pay off once

you graduate, even if you land yourself a job. Interest is already accruing once you accept and

use the loan, therefore the overall payment you have to make will be much more than what you

originally needed to pay to attend veterinary school. “Mean debt for 2011 graduates with debt

was $142,613, a 6.5 percent increase from the value for 2010 graduates” (Larkin). That total
includes both undergraduate school and veterinary school. Even though the data is a little bit

dated, there seems to be a trend of a quickly increasing average debt.

Brooke Davidson from the USU Financial Aid Department discussed during our

interview how that one of the main reasons that student loans get such a bad reputation is

because many students will pull out the loans, but not finish their degree. This puts them in a

situation where they have the debt, but not the education to get a better job to pay off their debt,

thus making it overwhelming and earning student loans such a bad connotation. You are not the

type of person to give up, especially when there is money involved. For example, when you buy

food with your own money, you’re the type of person that will eat it all regardless if it tastes

good or not. Your friends even call you stingy with your money. The cost of vet school through

the WIMU program at USU is roughly $100,000 (Vanderwall). This is because Utah partners

with Washington State University to allow students from USU to attend that vet school and pay

the same rate as residents would. You qualify for unsubsidized student federal loans, which

means that interest starts accruing as soon as you use the loan. With these student loans, you do

get a six-month grace period after graduation allowing you to find a job before you are

responsible for making any payments. Once you secure a job, you can begin paying off the

student loans with ease considering how much veterinarians make on average.

I firmly believe that your life experiences have shaped and prepared you to go to

veterinary school. You are a strong-willed and a hardworking woman who will not give up

during any of the trials you have ahead of you. You are the type of person that is determined to

work hard throughout your college career to learn what you need to know and do what you need

to do to be a perfect candidate for vet school. You have the opportunity to complete your life-

long dream of becoming a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, and it’s not too far from your reach.
The journey will be well worth the time and investment since you will be getting a lot more than

what you put in. Now it’s time for you to go make it happen.
 Works Cited

AAVMC (555) 123-4567, aavmc.dcwdbeta.com. “Media FAQs.” AAVMC, AAVMC,

https://www.aavmc.org/media-faqs.aspx.

Davidson, Brooke. Personal Interview. 5 Nov 2019.

Kramer, Mary Hope. “How Much Money Does a Veterinarian Typically Make?” The Balance

Careers, The Balance Careers, 15 Nov. 2019, https://www.thebalancecareers.com/salary-how-

much-do-vets-make-125652.

Larkin, Malinda. “Higher Debt, Lower Salaries a Continuing Concern for Grads.” Journal of the

American Veterinary Medical Association, vol. 240, no. 3, 1 Feb. 2012, pp. 242–258.,

https://avmajournals.avma.org/doi/full/10.2460/javma.240.3.242.

Moore, Irene C., et al. “The Role of Veterinary Team Effectiveness in Job Satisfaction and Burnout

in Companion Animal Veterinary Clinics.” Journal of the American Veterinary Medical

Association, vol. 245, no. 5, 1 Sept. 2014, pp. 513–524., doi:10.2460/javma.245.5.513.

Nett, Randall J., et al. “Risk Factors for Suicide, Attitudes toward Mental Illness, and Practice-

Related Stressors among US Veterinarians.” Journal of the American Veterinary Medical

Association, vol. 247, no. 8, 15 Oct. 2015, pp. 945–955., doi:10.2460/javma.247.8.945.

Nolen, R Scott. “The Corporatization of Veterinary Medicine.” Avma.org, JAVMAnews, 1 Dec.

2018, https://www.avma.org/News/JAVMANews/Pages/181201a.aspx.

Rogers, Kate. “For Aspiring Vets, Jobs Are Aplenty - Demand Set to Rise 18 Percent in 10 Years.”

CNBC Make It, CNBC, 3 Nov. 2017, https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/03/for-aspiring-vets-jobs-

are-aplenty-demand-set-to-rise-18-percent-in-10-years.html.

“Veterinarian Salary in Utah.” CareerExplorer, Sokanu Interactive Inc, 2018,

https://www.careerexplorer.com/careers/veterinarian/salary/utah/.
“Veterinarians : Occupational Outlook Handbook.” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Bureau of

Labor Statistic, 4 Sept. 2019, https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/veterinarians.htm.

Vanderwall, Dirk. School of Veterinary Medicine at Utah State University. September 2019.

PowerPoint Presentation.