Exit Interview: Tanya M

Tanya Mitjans is a WEC senior, who will attend the UF College of Veterinary Medicine, starting this fall.

What are you doing next year?

I begin my courses at the UF vet school in August!

What made you want to be an ecologist, and then a vet?

I always knew I wanted to be a veterinarian, but then I was going through some hard times in school, and looked up careers in animals, and found wildlife ecology. I didn’t even know it was a career option. I got really interested, found out that UF has a program, and applied!

I always go back to veterinary medicine in my plans, so I applied to the vet school and got in!

What do you want to work with when you are a vet?

Conservation efforts and things like that!

Whether in a zoo with small endangered species, or in private practice with exotics. People have some really interesting animals.

Definitely conservation, zoo medicine, and exotic animals in general.

Do you have a group of animals you’re most interested in?

I think a lot of people are really into the megafauna, like the big cats. Definitely mammals.

Birds too!

How did WEC prepare you for your next step?

I took Dr. Johnson’s Wildlife of Florida course, including the lab. In his course, he brought in USGS manatee researcher Dr. Bob Bondi. I got in touch with him, and he invited me to some manatee captures last February, so I’ve now been working with him for a year.

Dr. Johnson’s wildlife of Florida class gave me a path to work in research, and the ability to include in my resume something that shows I’ve looked at multiple career options and decided on veterinary medicine.

Dr. Bondi wound up being one of my letters of recommendation for vet school too—a federal biologist!

What work did you do with Dr. Bondi and the manatees?

We did a lot of sample preservation, with fecal samples from different parts of the Caribbean and Belize. They take a little piece of the tail for tissue samples, and I would preserve that as well.

Recently, I’m working with the Manatee Photo-identification Program data. They have over a hundred thousand sightings of manatees, and some known animals that they’ve watched for a couple years, so now I’m doing identification.

What are you looking forward to learning in vet school the most?

Everything!

I’m really excited to learn about diagnosing and treating animals!

I have six of my own pets, and whenever something happens to them, I’m really scrutinizing them, but I have no idea what’s really going on. I just try to get as much information as I can so I can relay it, but I want to actually be able to do something with that information.

Do you have anything else you’d like to say?

WEC is just a wonderful department. I transferred from Miami, and I love it here. I’m really glad I chose it over animal science or zoology. The classes are small, and you get to know your professors and have good relationships with them.

~

Thanks to Tanya Mitjans for speaking with us.

To learn more about the UF Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, click here!

0


Posted: March 1, 2018


Category:



Subscribe For More Great Content

IFAS Blogs Categories