Going to University- WHAT TO DO?!?

JontyMom

New member
Mar 2, 2019
1
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Orange Winged Anazon-Jonty
2 budgies- Bobby And Lolly
Cockatiel- Bingo
Hi Everyone.
Iā€™m new here,so I apologize if I make mistakes with the threadšŸ™ˆ.

I own an Orange Winged Amazon- Jonty. :green:He is my baby and I love him to bits! I bought him using my savings when I turned 16 (Iā€™m 18 now) and I donā€™t regret it one bit!

I am however a little worried as to what I will be doing next year.
Iā€™m in South Africa and in my last year of school. I really want to go to university (Iā€™m interested in the veterinary field),but I donā€™t know if I should take Jonty with or leave him with my parents?:confused:

The university that I want to go to,is about 1500 km away from home,so regular visits will be impossible. I will only be home during holidays.:(

I considered taking him along,but Iā€™m afraid that he wonā€™t be getting all the attention he needs as I may be really busy at Uni.I also donā€™t want to be kicked out of my apartment because of his flock calls:eek:!

He is bonded to my mom as well and he will be getting all his fruits/veggies,etc, so leaving him behind is an option,but Iā€™m scared that he will forget/hate me and that the strong bond we currently have will forever be broken/lost! Iā€™m also afraid of plucking:confused:..

I did all the necessary research before I got Jonty (correct diet,housing,toys,interaction,training,vet visits etc.)- but uni was not on my mind at all!
I do not regret getting Jonty at ALL!:green:

I feel really bad for having to leave him behind or not being able to give him all the love and cuddles he needs!:(

Please help with advice? :( :confused:
 

SailBoat

Supporting Member
Jul 10, 2015
17,646
10,008
Western, Michigan
Parrots
DYH Amazon
Welcome to Parrot Forums.
Cold hard statement: If your Amazon has bonded with your Mom and your Mom is willing to care for your Amazon, he will be better off staying with your mother.
Vet School is a like College with two side jobs. You will be busy near all the time.

NOTE #1: Avian Studies are in addition to the already full load of just Vet School.

NOTE #2: Your first Thread was delayed for some reason. Very sorry, but you should not experience this kind of delay in the future.
 

Scott

Supporting Member
Aug 21, 2010
32,673
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San Diego, California USA, Earth, Milky Way Galaxy
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Goffins: Gabby, Abby, Squeaky, Peanut, Popcorn / Citron: Alice / Eclectus: Angel /Timneh Grey: ET / Blue Fronted Amazon: Gonzo /

RIP Gandalf and Big Bird, you are missed.
Welcome to you and Jonty! You made the best decision at the time when Uni wasn't on the horizon, but life opportunities change. The most logical course is to leave him at home with your mom, but it is reasonable to realistically assess every aspect of taking him with you.

Modern technologies such as Skype/Facetime permit daily interaction from your home - and parrots are very capable of processing the image. Not nearly the same as him with you, but perhaps a good compromise.
 

EllenD

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Aug 20, 2016
3,979
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State College, PA
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Senegal Parrot named "Kane"; Yellow-Sided Green Cheek Conure named "Bowie"; Blue Quaker Parrot named "Lita Ford"; Cockatiel named "Duff"; 8 American/English Budgie Hybrids; Ringneck Dove named "Dylan"
Congrats on graduating and moving-on to college...This is a very tough decision to make, and as someone who went through 4 years of undergrad for Health Science (pre-med) and then 3 years of graduate school for Animal Health Science, AND had my dog and my bird with me throughout the entire time, I might be able to provide a different prospective to you...

Now keep in-mind that my mom grew-up in a parrot-breeding home herself, and bred, hand-raised, and owned parrots all her life, so there would have been no problem with me leaving either my dog or my bird with her at all. So I was in the same situation as you in that respect as well. However, I chose to bring them both with me because #1 I wanted them with me (selfishly in a way, and in other ways not), and then #2 because I certainly did not want to lose my close bond with them while I was gone, and I truly believed that they would still be better-off living with me even though my time with them might be less than what my mom would be able to spend with them, simply because they were my babies, and the time that I spent with them was of a more important, better quality of time than would be time with anyone else, regardless of how much...And keep in-mind that I went to a college that was only an hour and 15 minute drive from home, and a graduate school that was only a 20 minute drive from home. So I could have easily visited and seen them at least every weekend for 2 days anyway...But I still took them with me...

When I look back on my 4 years of undergrad for my BS in Health Science/Pre-Med and then my 3 years of Graduate School for my MS in Animal Health Science, I still to this day think that my undergrad was more difficult...Now 4 years of Veterinary Medical School (which I almost did as well) will include the first 2 years being classroom studies and the last 2 years being practical work in Vet offices/hospitals. Yes, your time will be limited, but if you are good at prioritizing your time and aren't going to party every night, then it's quite doable...During your 4 years of undergrad you will have a ton of free-time, as you might have only 3 classes for an hour each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and then 2 classes for an hour and a half every Tuesday and Thursday, along with a 3-4 hour lab one day a week for one or two of those classes...Or any combination of that schedule, which would be a 15-credit undergrad BS in Pre-Med/Pre-Vet...So the bottom line is you have a lot of free time throughout each day and every evening...So I would always purposely schedule all of my classes to start early in the mornings and have them all back-to-back, so I could get home early in the afternoon and have the rest of each day free...Then I would get home around 2-3 in the afternoon and be done for the day (and on Tuesdays and Thursdays I was usually done by 12:00), and I would immediately take the dog for a walk and then let the bird out in my apartment...Then I got all of my school-work done first, so immeditely did all of my reading for each class I had that day, and any actual homework, papers, etc. done first...So I would be done with all of my studying and work usually by 5 each night, and earlier on Tuesdays/Thursdays, and then I had all evening with my dog and bird. I usually only went out one night a week, either Friday or Saturday night, and no more (that's a choice you have to make for yourself, but if you're going to do pre-Vet and want to get into a Veterinary Medical School, it's extremely competitive and more difficult by-far to get into than regular Medical School is)...So anyway I would go out usually on Friday nights, and then spend the weekends with the dog and bird and doing whatever, hiking, biking, movies, laundry, etc.

College is all about time-management, especially if you're going into the medical sciences. But the bottom-line is that I was able to spend almost the same amount of time with my dog and my bird during my 4 years of Pre-Med undergrad for my BS as I spent with them when I was in high-school!!! And I graduated from college with BS in Pre-Med/Health Science Magna Cum Laude with an overall GPA of 3.725, and I still had a ton of fun and was a great mother to my babies. So it's quite doable...And grad school was actually much easier time-wise, because it's like working a regular 9-5 job, you spend 8-4 or 9-5 Monday thru Friday in one building for the first 2 years, and the last 2 years are practical experience/training at a hospital/office, so it's actually easier in my own opinion, at least from a time perspective...To be successful you have to put schoolwork first regardless of whether you have your bird with you, so having your bird with you isn't really any different than working a full-time job and taking care of a child. Either way you're not going to be with your bird all day long every day, so it's about making the evenings with him count, making them special...

It's a choice only you can make, and you want to do what you think is best for you and your bird. It's great that your mom and your bird are close, but remember that 4-8 years without him being with you for the majority of the time and rather being with your mom is going to probably result in him being your mom's bird. That's just how that goes. So you have to think about that too, weigh all the pro's and con's, and make the best decision you can.,..But remember, you can study very well with your bird on your shoulder, trust me I know, lol...
 

EllenD

New member
Aug 20, 2016
3,979
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State College, PA
Parrots
Senegal Parrot named "Kane"; Yellow-Sided Green Cheek Conure named "Bowie"; Blue Quaker Parrot named "Lita Ford"; Cockatiel named "Duff"; 8 American/English Budgie Hybrids; Ringneck Dove named "Dylan"
I wanted to follow-up on my above post from yesterday...I want to make sure that you know that I wasn't trying to influence you to do one thing or the other, and that only YOU can make this decision, because it's your life and it's your bird. I just wanted to present the view that is opposite to what most people are going to tell you, that 4 years of pre-med/vet and then 4 years of Veterinary Medical School are going to absolutely be too much to care for your parrot at the same time. That's simply just not true 100% of the time, but it's important to realize that it is true for some people...It all depends on the person and what their own, personal priorities in life are. At 18 years-old my main focuses in life were music (I'm a life-long musician and Alto Sax, Guitar, Percussion, and Soprano Recorder player), animals, moutain biking and other outdoor sports, and then once I started college my school-work became high in the priority list as well...But it is quite possible to do extremely well during your 4 years of pre-med/vet undergrad and still have a life and time to be with your parrot, and that's a viewpoint I just wanted to present, especially as someone who did exactly what you are planning on doing.

I think the most important thing for someone who has an ultimate goal of going to Veterinary Medical School to become a Vet to know is that you must do well in your 4-years of undergrad work, yes, but I believe that having my bird and my dog with me that entire time actually kept me sane and grounded at the same time, and I truly believe that I personally would not have done nearly as well as I did during my undergrad work had I not had them both with me to come home to each afternoon. Not only are our animals stress-relief in-general, but for someone who has a special connection to animals/birds and actually wants to make their career Veterinary Medicine or anything similar, having animals in their lives is almost a necessity. So that was my own point of view, but again, only YOU can weigh all of the pros and cons and make that decision...It's important to take everyone's advice and listen to it and use it to come-up with the pros and cons, but it's also important that you don't let anyone else make this decision for you, or allow them to slowly "work on you" over time in order to break you down and ultimately make the decision for you...This is typically what some parents do, as well as spouses/significant others, and it's important that you know that while you need to take their feelings and wants into consideration, it's still your life and if you don't do what you want to do, in the end you'll not be truly happy, whether you find that out in 5 years, 10 yers, or 30 years from now...

If you have any questions about going to college for Pre-Med/Pre-Vet or going to Veterinary School (or getting into Veterinary School), don't hesitate to PM me with any questions, I'd be happy to fill you in on anything I can...I don't know what country you are planning on going to college and then graduate/Veterinary School in, but I can tell you that in the US, getting accepted into Veterinary Medical School is much, much more difficult than it is getting accepted into human Medical School, in fact getting accepted into human Medical School to become a human Doctor is a total breeze compared to getting accepted into Veterinary School...This is due to a few different reasons, but mainly because for every 50 human Medical Schools in the US there is 1 Veterinary Medical School. It seems counterintuitive, but it's exactly the same situation if you want to get into a Graduate School to get your Master's Degree and become either a PA (Physician's Assistant) or a Nurse Practitioner, there just aren't many Graduate Schools that offer the necessary 2-year Master's Degree in PA or CNP studies, so it's so extremely competitive that believe it or not, it's very, very common for people who don't get accepted into Graduate School to become a PA or Veterinary School to become a Vet to "settle' and just go to Medical School and become a human Doctor!!! I know quite a few people who got their BS in Health Science/Pre-Med/Animal Health Science and who did extremely well during undergrad and who then applied to either PA School or Vet School, didn't get accepted, so as their "back-up plan" they also applied to several regular Medical Schools and got into all of them...So they have been practicing human medical Doctors for over a decade now, not because they ever wanted to be human doctors at all in any way, but simply because they couldn't get into a Vet School...

So there are a lot of things that you can do starting right now, even before you start your undergrad studies, and then of course all throughout your 4-years of undergrad to vastly increase your chances of getting accepted into a Veterinary Medical School, at least in the US...I don't know what the situation is in other countries as far as getting accepted into Vet School, it may be totally different, I don't know...But if you have any questions about undergrad or Vet School/Grad School, don't hesitate to PM me any time.
 

bigfellasdad

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Id say leave Jonty with your mom. I work from home all of the time now and I struggle to work whilst my parrot is out and about as she wants my attention a lot of the time too, this would not help you in your studies!
 

LaManuka

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Hello all... please be mindful that this thread is now well over a year old... :)
 

Relznot

New member
Aug 4, 2017
6
0
Hi Everyone.
Iā€™m new here,so I apologize if I make mistakes with the threadšŸ™ˆ.

I own an Orange Winged Amazon- Jonty. :green:He is my baby and I love him to bits! I bought him using my savings when I turned 16 (Iā€™m 18 now) and I donā€™t regret it one bit!

I am however a little worried as to what I will be doing next year.
Iā€™m in South Africa and in my last year of school. I really want to go to university (Iā€™m interested in the veterinary field),but I donā€™t know if I should take Jonty with or leave him with my parents?:confused:

The university that I want to go to,is about 1500 km away from home,so regular visits will be impossible. I will only be home during holidays.:(

I considered taking him along,but Iā€™m afraid that he wonā€™t be getting all the attention he needs as I may be really busy at Uni.I also donā€™t want to be kicked out of my apartment because of his flock calls:eek:!

He is bonded to my mom as well and he will be getting all his fruits/veggies,etc, so leaving him behind is an option,but Iā€™m scared that he will forget/hate me and that the strong bond we currently have will forever be broken/lost! Iā€™m also afraid of plucking:confused:..

I did all the necessary research before I got Jonty (correct diet,housing,toys,interaction,training,vet visits etc.)- but uni was not on my mind at all!
I do not regret getting Jonty at ALL!:green:

I feel really bad for having to leave him behind or not being able to give him all the love and cuddles he needs!:(

Please help with advice? :( :confused:

i was in the exact same situation only i went to school at a different country.
in my opinion you should start the first semester without youre bird, see if you can handle it.
it might weaken youre bond but its fixable.
i left my little goffin at my friends family, they offered to keep him until ill finish school.
i only did that because my family didnt like her and i couldnt take her with me to italy (cites).
i guess what im saying is.. its amazing that you can get help from your mother! use it!
if you see you can give your bird a good life as a vet student even better.
good luck:)
 

1oldparroter

Member
Nov 4, 2019
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I am 71, married and fairly private. I have PM privileges but prefer the phone. Printed messages, are so limited. jh
This guy is good. All of us may not always agree with everyone BUT we should listen AND think. jh
[ame="https://youtu.be/ubtMLpTOEzs"]How Smokey Deals With Me Being Away On Vacation - YouTube[/ame]
 

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