It's the end of the academic year, and around the world, thousands of final year vet students are facing the start of their careers. It's an exciting time with a lot of optimism, but likely also a fair whack of anxiety. There are so many major decisions to make, and you've heard so many scary stories about life as a vet?! 

This is why we're having this conversation with Dr Moriah McCauley. Moriah is on the other side of this breakwater between student life and vet life. Just more than a year out of vet school, still keeping her head above water, still at her first job as a small animal GP practitioner, and mostly enjoying it, despite the massive curveball that a global pandemic has thrown at her and her friends. 

But Moriah is not your average recent grad. Well, she is, but she has an unfair advantage: when she was a student she started That Vet Life Podcast (https://bit.ly/ThatVetLife), and in later 2021 her and the podcast joined VetX International as part of a global team of mentors. On the podcast, she's had dozens of in-depth conversations with experienced vets about how to survive and thrive as a veterinarian. This means that she has been accumulating the skills needed to navigate this profession for a long time, unlike most of us who learn the hard way!

So this one is for you new grads of the world, bravely facing the adventure that awaits: we talk about picking the right first job, the things that still surprised Moriah about real life as a vet, tips for survival, making sure you keep growing, and Moriah gives us a guide to setting up the RIGHT kind of mentoring relationships. 

But it's also for you senior vets, managers and bosses, who will be in charge of taking care of our new colleagues. You need to hear what Moriah has to say about her first year out - about how she planned her growth with the help of mentors, about what her and her classmates value, what they need, why they leave jobs, and what they can bring to your business. 

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