Herleen Mokha, Theta Chapter - February 2020

What are you doing today and how did joining Kappa Phi Gamma Sorority, Inc. prepare you for this? I am a second year veterinary student at Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine. Kappa Phi Gamma sorority, Inc. gave me the push I needed at such a critical time in my life to adopt the confidence I have today. If you asked 17 year old me to speak in front of a crowd of 200 students it would be unfathomable. But in just a few short months of becoming a sister my freshman year of college, I was doing exactly that. This sorority taught me to ask for help when I need it, to work smarter not harder, and that nothing good comes easy.

What were your biggest challenges and struggles? If you google “whitest job in America”, can you guess what profession you would see? By far the biggest challenge I had to overcome in my journey to veterinary school was to simply comprehend that being a veterinarian is actually within my realm of possibilities. I had never seen myself represented within the field growing up, and although my parents in retrospect say that my love of animals and science as a child should’ve caused them to push me towards veterinary medicine as well, they never considered it either. It was not until that I was almost in my last year of college that I chose this field; and it was simply because I was walking to class and saw a friend scrolling through snapchat and click on a story of a woman working in an animal hospital. I noticed she also had a Punjabi name. It only took seeing a 10 second video of someone who represented me to change my entire life. On top of school and extracurriculars, getting the variety of animal experiences necessary to apply can be grueling at times. What makes the challenge a lot easier is to constantly have an curious mind; as long as you genuine enjoy figuring out ‘why’ things are happening, the ‘how’ of medicine wont feel as exhausting.

What is your favorite part of your position/career/field? I love the flexibility in the type of medicine I can practice as a (future) Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. In any given day I can be a surgeon, dentist, general practitioner, be providing palliative care for a geriatric patient in one exam room, or helping a new mother give birth to her pups in the next. No one day will ever look the same for me, and I enjoy the creativity involved in providing care for various species, each with specific anatomic and physiologic needs.

What is your work/life balance? At the moment, being a student is my work and my life. It’s hard to even think of the two as separate entities. Whenever I’m not studying I am spending time with my dog or with friends. We try our best not to discuss school, but the topic inevitably always comes up.

What do you perceive are the benefits of joining Kappa Phi Gamma Sorority, Inc.? Kappa Phi Gamma Sorority, Inc. is an amazing family to have while going through one of the most formative times as a young woman. There has never been a moment where I have felt alone since joining. Learning to balance your personal and professional relationships with sisters are skills that are applicable to every future profession a woman might have. Event planning, collaboration with other organizations, and professional development are skills the sorority opens you up to gaining. Often time you gain these skills a lot earlier than you would in any other organization, at least in my experience. What advice do you have for women that are attempting to follow your career path? Reach out to me. I can’t recount how many times I have been confided in by members of the South Asian community who have said things like “I wish I went through with it”, “I feel like it’s too late now”, or “My family wouldn’t support it”. The truth is, you spend more time at work than anywhere else. It’s important not to let anyone else dictate that decision. If you have a true passion for medicine you owe it to yourself to explore veterinary medicine as an option before writing it off simply because you have not seen representation within it before.

How do you measure your success? I’m not a very regimented person. I measure success in small goals; If I stayed awake in all my lectures, made it to the gym, studied, and remembered to call my mom; I consider that a success. In order to measure emotional success, every time I am going through an upsetting period in my life I tend to journal it. Inevitably, every time I go back a few months later, I laugh about how ridiculous whatever it was that upset me the last time I decided to write in the journal. In all, if I am learning a new skill each month that I had known nothing about the last, it signals to me that I am doing something right and that I am successfully moving forward in life.