Welcoming back Sydney, a returning extern to the team at Craig Road Animal Hospital!
Sydney is a fourth-year veterinary medical student at Tuskegee University and will graduate in 2023. She was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, and has wanted to be a veterinarian for as long as she could remember. Sydney said she had dogs and cats growing up, which fostered her love of animals even more. She’s also been a life-long lover of science.
“Ever since I was small, I wanted to be an animal doctor,” Sydney said. “That’s been a straight focus for me, it’s the only thing I’ve wanted to do.” Sydney also said that growing up in Atlanta, she didn’t see many veterinarians that looked like her, and part of her wondered for a while if she could make it as a veterinarian.
“It was another thing that really motivated me, to be someone that my nieces and nephews could look up to, like, “Oh! Auntie did it, so I can, too!'” she said.
Sydney received her Bachelors from Augusta State University and her Masters from Georgia State University, both in Cellular Biology and Physiology. Sydney was advised to go to vet school after completing her undergrad, but she decided to pursue a Masters degree to make sure her study skills were intact and that she had the proper mindset before going to vet school.
“I wanted to make sure I had more of a science background, even though I already had it,” Sydney said. “It was to really make sure I had the right mentality for it.”
During her studies in Alabama and Georgia, Sydney has volunteered in shelter medicine and adoption programs to help shelter pets find their forever homes. She was also part of a cheer team and did a lot of community outreach. Sydney heard about the externship program at Craig Road after looking for work opportunities during the summer on Google. She said she’s most looking forward to seeing how a large animal clinic operates, working with veterinary professionals, and how different veterinary medicine operates on the East Coast versus the West Coast.
“I plan on being like a sponge and just pick up everything I can while I’m here,” she said.
Sydney said she’s most interested in small animal medicine and has a growing interest in radiology and internal medicine. She said she likes the puzzle of trying to figure out what could be affecting someone’s pet but is keeping an open mind about all different fields in animal medicine.
In her spare time, Sydney enjoys reading sci-fi and fantasy novels, watching anime, being outdoors doing nature walks, and taking her dog to the park. She has a 4-year-old Pitbull named Ice Cube and a 2-year-old Bearded dragon named Coolio.