College professors have three jobs: researcher or scholar, teacher, and advisor. Advising gets the least attention and respect from a faculty member, but experience has taught me that a good advisor can produce a dramatic effect on students' lives. Working with advisees, as well as classes, can also sometimes give you surprises and pleasure.
After University College (the first two years of enrollment), students sometimes don’t see their advisors until the semester before they graduate, at which point they find out that because they hadn’t seen their advisor they’re going to have to spend an extra semester in school for some reason. Well, I had one advisee that I’d seen maybe once, and I saw her again when she was a junior. Just to make conversation, I said, “So, Melanie, what do you want to do when you finish URI?” She immediately burst into wracking sobs. Clearly, the wrong question. After I got her calmed down, she blurted out how she loved animals, but she was the first one in her family to get a college degree, and her father insisted she get something practical like a pharmacy degree, and she loved her father and wouldn’t ever defy him, but she hated pharmacy, and she wanted to be a furrier, because she had a job with one last summer, and really loved it, and–.
At this point I stopped her, because clearly I didn’t understand something. She loved animals, but she wanted to be a FURRIER? Sell fur coats? Puzzled, I asked her about it. No, no, not a furrier, a FARRIER. Well, I have been cursed with a good memory for odd words, and I actually knew what a farrier is, and why an animal lover from a rural part of Rhode Island might want to be one. A farrier is someone who is a professional horse-shoer, and they actually make very good money in horse areas, like Kentucky, or Beverly, Massachusetts.
Now I could see the problem, so I asked her if it would be okay with her father if she became a veterinarian. She said, sure, but she was positive she didn’t have the grades to get into vet school, and after checking, I had to agree. So I took a chance, and suggested that she switch to one of the pre-vet majors like bio or animal science. Then I predicted that her dad would be so pleased and proud to see her graduate, that if she immediately started an apprenticeship with a farrier, he’d forget about Pharmacy or vet school.
Well, I lucked out on that one. I got a letter from her a couple of years later. She was now a farrier, doing a lot of work for the race tracks, and she said that if I ever had a horse, I wouldn’t have to pay for shoes for the rest of my life. Very nice, flattering offer, but unfortunately, I don’t have a horse. But it was sweet anyway.
