The first clue that today's class is something special: there's a dog in the room. A real, live, tail-wagging, tennis-ball-carrying dog.
Rainier, a gentle yellow lab with patient eyes and a calm demeanor, lounges under instructor Sam's desk as students arrive for EXPLO's Veterinary Science Focus Program. He's one of four dogs Sam owns, and today he's not just visiting—he's the patient, the teaching assistant, and occasionally, the entertainment.
Held in a bright classroom overlooking the picturesque Wellesley College campus, this program gives rising 8th and 9th graders an immersive look into veterinary medicine. But this isn't observation from the sidelines. Today, these middle schoolers will conduct physical exams, perform ultrasounds, practice suturing, and diagnose real case studies—guided by professionals who do this work every day.
Welcome to a day when curious kids become veterinarians.
Leading today's session are two veterinary professionals with complementary expertise. Sam works at a veterinary clinic and brings years of hands-on experience with animal care, medical procedures, and the realities of clinical practice. She knows what it takes to work with animals professionally because she does it daily.
Joining her is Graham, a visiting veterinarian from Back Bay Veterinary Clinic. Graham is equal parts expert and entertainer—warm, funny, and genuinely gifted at connecting with young people.
Throughout the day, Sam and Graham work in seamless collaboration. Graham provides clinical experience and case studies from active practice. Sam reinforces terminology students learned in previous sessions, points out techniques Graham doesn't explicitly mention, and offers insights from her own veterinary work.
This is the kind of professional partnership that students will one day experience in their own careers: specialists bringing different expertise to solve problems together, each strengthening the other's teaching, creating a richer learning experience than either could provide alone.
Before diving into the day's hands-on activities, Graham poses a foundational question: What kinds of jobs exist in veterinary medicine? The students all know that vets treat animals, but few realize the breadth of career paths within the field:
Each role requires different skills, different educational paths, and different temperaments. This kind of nuanced career exploration—showing students the full landscape of possibilities rather than a single narrow path—is exactly what makes EXPLO's approach so valuable for middle schoolers trying to understand where their interests and abilities might lead.
Graham transitions into radiology, explaining how X-rays and ultrasounds allow veterinarians to see inside animals without surgery. He invites a student to the board to draw an anatomical heart diagram that they'll use later when ultrasounding Rainier.
Then he displays real ultrasound images from his practice. First, a healthy dog's scan, with students coming to the board to identify different organs. Then, unhealthy examples showing various diseases and conditions.
"It looks like there's something in the lungs. Like maybe fluid?" one student offers tentatively.
"You're batting 1000! That's exactly right," Graham beams.
The confidence boost is visible. The student sits taller, more willing to take risks on the next question.
One inquisitive student asks a question that shifts the room's energy: "What does someone do if they can't afford to help their dog?"
Graham's response is honest and profound. He explains that veterinarians regularly face heartbreaking situations where families must make impossible choices between financial constraints and their pet's wellbeing. Vets can offer payment plans, discuss prioritizing treatments, or connect families with assistance programs, but sometimes there are no good options.
"This is where compassion fatigue comes in," Graham explains. "It can be really hard to support people through these situations, but it's a big part of being in any medical field. If you don't want to deal with that emotional weight, you might want to go into a non-people field like radiology."
This moment matters enormously. Graham doesn’t sugarcoat the career or pretend everything is heartwarming animal rescue stories. He shows students the full picture: the joy of healing animals and the heartbreak of limitations, the satisfaction of diagnosis and the burden of delivering bad news, the technical skills required and the emotional resilience needed.
Many career exploration programs tell students what's exciting about a field. EXPLO's approach shows them what's real—the difficult parts alongside the rewarding ones—so students can make genuinely informed decisions about their interests and aptitudes.
Graham presents a real case from his practice: Waffles, an English Bulldog experiencing fever, abdominal discomfort, and frequent urination. He asks the class to diagnose.
Together, they walk through a diagnostic plan. What tests would help? What should they do first? Why?
A student recommends starting with a blood test, because "it's not very expensive but can give a lot of information."
Through discussion, students are exhibiting the ability to weigh costs against benefits, to prioritize information-gathering steps, and to build from general screening to specific investigation.
As students grow more confident, ideas flow faster. They call out suggestions for diagnosis and treatment plans, building on each other's thinking, debating possibilities, reasoning through options together.
This collaborative diagnostic process mirrors how real medical teams work—specialists contributing expertise, questioning assumptions, refining hypotheses based on evidence.
Now comes the transformation from observers to practitioners.
Rainier is gently placed on a table, and Sam holds him steady while Graham demonstrates a complete physical exam. He checks Rainier's eyes, ears, mouth, range of motion, paws, and abdomen, explaining what he's looking for at each step and why it matters.
"Rainier is perfectly healthy," Graham announces.
Then Graham distributes stethoscopes, and one by one, every student gets a turn listening to Rainier's heart, lungs, and digestive sounds. The room fills with concentration as students adjust earpieces, position the chest piece carefully, and hear the rhythmic beating that signals healthy cardiovascular function.
"I can hear it!" "It's so fast!" "Wait, what am I listening for again?"
While students rotate through stethoscope practice, others learn suturing. Graham demonstrates the technique step by step: threading the needle, positioning the first stitch, tying surgical knots that hold firmly but don't damage tissue, spacing stitches evenly, maintaining appropriate tension.
It's precise, meticulous work that requires focused attention and steady hands. The suturing group grows quiet as they concentrate, trying different knot types, helping each other thread needles, practicing until their fingers remember the movements.
Rainier, being the professional teaching assistant he is, takes a break to lie on the floor and rest. Even patient dogs need breaks from being poked and prodded by enthusiastic students.
After lunch, the program transforms into a full veterinary training lab with four simultaneous stations:
Using stuffed dog manikins, students practice immobilizing fractures and wrapping injuries—learning the proper pressure (tight enough to stabilize, loose enough to maintain circulation) and techniques for different types of injuries.
Students continue refining their surgical skills, trying multiple suture patterns and learning when different techniques are appropriate.
Examining real swabs from Rainier’s ears and mouth, students explore the microscopic world of bacteria, cells, and parasites that veterinarians diagnose and treat.
This is the highlight for many students. Sam had thoughtfully shaved a small patch on Rainier's abdomen before class, making it easier to get clear ultrasound images. Now students take turns handling professional equipment, gliding the wand across Rainier's belly while watching the real-time images appear on the monitor.
"That's his kidney!" "Can you show me the intestines?" "Where's his bladder?"
Graham guides their observation, pointing out structures, explaining what they're seeing, and showing them Rainier's organs.
The experience is remarkable. These middle schoolers are operating the same equipment used in veterinary clinics across the country, seeing the same images professional radiologists interpret, and beginning to understand how veterinarians use technology to diagnose conditions without invasive procedures.
EXPLO's Veterinary Science Focus Program exemplifies effective middle school career exploration for several reasons:
Authentic practice: Students aren't watching demonstrations—they're performing procedures, analyzing cases, and using professional equipment.
Honest career information: Graham and Sam present both the rewards and challenges of veterinary medicine, including emotional difficulties that many career programs ignore.
Multiple entry points: By showcasing different roles within veterinary medicine, the program shows students that loving animals can lead to various career paths, each requiring different skills and offering different experiences.
Immediate feedback: When students position a stethoscope correctly, they hear the heartbeat. When they tie a suture properly, it holds. The work provides clear, immediate information about technique.
Professional mentorship: Graham and Sam treat students as emerging professionals, remembering their names, valuing their questions, and respecting their developing expertise.
Your middle schooler has potential waiting to be discovered—whether in veterinary science, engineering, arts, wilderness skills, or any of EXPLO's 40+ electives and focus programs.
Rising 8th and 9th graders don't just learn about careers at EXPLO—they step into professional roles, work with expert mentors, and discover what different paths actually feel like from the inside.
Explore EXPLO's summer programs and enroll for summer 2026.
Part of the Inside EXPLO series: Behind-the-scenes looks at how middle school students explore real-world skills through hands-on summer enrichment at Wellesley College.