When Jennifer Sletmoen left Fort Frances High School in 1998 with a 93 percent average, there was little doubt she was destined to make her mark in post-secondary education.
That opportunity came when she was accepted in the University of Manitoba’s School of Agriculture and Food Sciences.
She certainly made the most of it.
When the university held its spring convocation late last month, Sletmoen was one of 17 students to be awarded the gold medal of excellence for achieving the highest grade point average in their respective fields.
With the award went a $3,325 bursary, which can be applied to future education or just used for other purposes. In her case, it will be put away for the time being until it is time for the next step in her education.
If all goes well, that will be at the University of Saskatchewan in September, 2004, where she intends to study veterinary medicine.
In the meantime, she is working at the agricultural research station in Brandon, Man. until she fulfills the residency requirements for admission to the university’s Western College of Veterinary Medicine.
“There’s a strict quota,” Sletmoen, the daughter of Wilma and Darrel Sletmoen, said last week from Brandon. “I’m still legally an Ontario resident and in order to change that, I have to live and work in a western province for 12-consecutive months without attending post-secondary school.
“So I’m putting in my time in Manitoba, basically,” she explained.
Don’t shed any tears for her, though. For someone of Sletmoen’s background and interests, things couldn’t be much better.
“It’s really good. I really enjoy it there [in Brandon] and it looks like it is going to continue into a full-year position,” she enthused.
Sletmoen works in the beef unit at the research station, where she is able to put her education to good use.
“I’m fortunate to have a varied job and I’m working quite a bit in the lab where I’m doing BSA [bovine serum albumin] analyses, where I’m looking for blood proteins in milk samples.
“This indicates mastitis,” she explained.
“Also, I get to take blood samples and I’ve been to a slaughterhouse and watched the whole slaughtering procedure,” she added.
Actually, she almost didn’t wind up in Brandon at all. Originally, Sletmoen intended to study veterinary medicine at the University of Guelph, but due to some bureaucratic mix-ups, she found she would have had to take another year of university courses to meet the criteria there.
Rather than spend another year in school, she elected to spend it working before heading into the grind of veterinary training.
The program consists of four long years, after which she intends to go into a mixed practice—one composed of large livestock and smaller pets. If that proves to be too much, she’ll have to make a choice.
“If I have to choose, I’ll probably go with large animals because that’s where my experience is,” Sletmoen remarked.
There are other options. It seems her current employers recognize talent when they see it and they already have dangled some carrots in front of her.
“My boss is trying to talk me into going into research and getting my Ph.D., but I just don’t know,” Sletmoen said. “If I end up not going into veterinary medicine, I plan on getting my Master’s—probably in ruminant nutrition.”
Whatever her decision, Sletmoen probably will wind up working with the big animals she grew up with on a farm just west of Fort Frances.
“I’m definitely a hands-on sort of person,” she said.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
