Durham College (DC) Animal Care graduate Rebeca Martiniello’s decision to return to school after the pandemic has landed her just where she wanted to be: working in an animal hospital and preparing to take the next step in her career trajectory as she takes on more training in September to become a veterinary technician.

Out of school for nine years, Martiniello had been working in the childcare industry when the pandemic hit. While she liked working with children, her lifelong love of animals meant she always knew she wanted to work with them. Yet in early job applications to animal care facilities, she got no response. She realized that retraining would help and started looking into programs.

Many friends recommended DC because of their own positive experiences. She also appreciated the program’s affordability and hand-on nature. “Last year felt like the right time, the right moment to make a new start of the school year,” said Martiniello. With the option to begin in January, she was pleased to be able to start her studies right away rather than waiting until the fall.

The January start also meant that her second term would be in the summer, something that Martiniello said led to some surprising bonuses.

“I personally enjoyed that because I’m not a big summer person, so being able to do my placement in peak season for wildlife, I got to experience more of that environment,” she said.

Another discovery was her Wildlife and Exotic Animals class, something she was not expecting. “Wildlife was my favourite class. The teacher was awesome, and we had an assignment going out and engaging with the world, so had to go out to a forest or park, and observe the birds, animals, and trees, then identify everything in reference books for class,” recalls Martiniello, adding that she also enjoyed the Animal Handling and Restraint and the Domestic Animal Science courses for their practical applications.

Martiniello was also elated to make a good connection with a teacher who supported her through the program and recommended her to her current workplace, an animal hospital in York region. Now she’s getting to put into practice all that she learned in class, bringing animals back for veterinary technicians’ treatments from vaccines to nail trims to ear cleanings, and helping veterinarians prepare for surgery. She also runs blood work after technicians have done blood draws, and helps with scheduling pet patient appointments using a common software program she learned in the program.

“Everything that I’m doing, it’s identical to what we learned,” said Martiniello.

At DC, Martiniello said she felt very supported with accommodations she found through the Student Academic Learning Services (SALS). “As someone who has an Independent Education Plan (IEP), I used accommodations, and without that support and those counsellors I would have struggled a lot more. My counsellor was wonderful, I felt safe with the IEP I had, and whenever I had questions or concerns, she always made the time for me,” said Martiniello. “They offered a lot of resources in terms of mental health, study strategies, bursaries to qualify for, and when I chose certain ones, they took the time to walk me through that completely,” she added.

With her new job and her plan to gain further training as a vet technician at another college in September, Martiniello said she is grateful for the opportunity she found at DC. “This is all because of experience the Animal Care program offered me, the confidence to feel I could go back to school.”