Earning a vet assistant certificate can open up doors if you have a passion for animals and want a job that lets you work closely with them. Vet assistants, vet techs, and office personnel are all part of any veterinarian’s team, promoting animal health and wellbeing.
Whether you take a vet assistant course and earn a certificate or go the college route to get a vet tech degree, working in veterinary medicine has a lot to offer. Also, the ever-growing pet population means that job opportunities in veterinary medicine are going to expand as well, making it a solid choice.
Becoming a veterinary technician requires an associate or bachelor’s degree. They perform procedures such as diagnostic tests, surgical prep, lab tests, vaccinations, and other medical tasks. They could be thought of in terms of nurses in the human world.
Although not allowed to do as much as vet techs, veterinary assistants are in the thick of things at any veterinary practice.
They support both the front office staff and the vet techs and veterinarians. On any given day, vet assistants may be answering phones, prepping examination and surgical rooms, exercising, feeding or grooming animals, filing paperwork, checking in patients and weighing them, monitoring animals after surgery, collecting lab samples, and other tasks too numerous to mention.
The great thing about being a vet assistant–aside from spending so much time helping animals–is that you can enter the profession without a college degree, and the pay is not that much less per hour than that of a vet tech.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average national hourly wage for a vet tech in the United States was $21.18 in April, 2024. The average hourly wage for a vet assistant was $17.94.
The pay differential is not that great when you think about how much faster you can start working as a vet assistant and how much less it will cost to become one.
A vet assistant program prepares you to work in a vet clinic, but it is a very different process than earning a vet tech degree, which requires at least a two-year associate’s degree from an accredited college to get credentialed.
For anyone considering an eventual career as a veterinarian, becoming a vet tech first might be the smarter option, although it’s a much slower, expensive path to take to get a job.
A public community college offers the most affordable path to a vet tech career, but tuition still runs $3,500 to $5,000 per year. Private schools are exponentially higher.
Taking a vet assistant course is way faster and a lot less expensive, and you can often earn your certification online, which is super-helpful. For example, tuition for the Animal Behavior College Vet Assistant Program starts at $999. You could pay much more than that just for books while getting a college degree!
Bottom line: having a vet assistant certificate from Animal Behavior College (ABC) can get you noticed when you’re hunting for a job. Though not a requirement in order to become a vet assistant, taking a course is really the smartest pathway if you want to get your foot in the door for a job. As you might have discovered, LOTS of people want to work with animals, and the jobs usually go to people with some experience or education.
Online programs like ABC’s are flexible, affordable, and fast in comparison to the time, rigor, and cost of a traditional college degree. You can complete the ABC vet assistant course in about 12 months, and since the curriculum is online, you can enroll anytime, no matter where you live.
Then, ABC gives students real world experience in a nearby mentor facility through an externship. With thousands of mentors across the country, students have a chance to practice what they’ve learned in a local vet clinic or animal hospital.
You’ll learn the responsibilities of the job and get the kind of valuable practical experience that is so attractive to employers. If you’re serious about working as a veterinary assistant, you should consider the ABC Veterinary Assistant Program. Enroll today by calling 800-795-3294.