This Cornell Vet Student Survived Homelessness. Now She's Rewriting the Rules on Who Gets to Be a Veterinarian
Sydney Paris doesn't fit the traditional mold of a veterinary student, and that's exactly why the profession needs her
Sydney Paris had already logged over 2,000 volunteer hours before she ever set foot in a veterinary classroom. Not because it looked good on an application. Not because someone told her it was required. Because service wasn't something she did, she did it because it was survival, community, and the only path she knew forward.
Now a first-generation, low-income student at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, Sydney is building something the veterinary profession desperately needs: proof that students who've faced homelessness, financial instability, and trauma don't just belong in veterinary medicine, they might be exactly who this field needs to survive its current crisis.
The Advice That Changed Everything
Early in her journey, Sydney got a piece of advice that completely shifted how she showed up: Stop waiting for permission to take up space.
Like many students from nontraditional backgrounds, she'd internalized the belief that she needed to prove she belonged before speaking up, before pursuing leadership, before claiming her seat at the table. That mindset was keeping her small in spaces where her voice mattered most.
Letting that go? It changed everything.
It opened doors to advocacy work she'd assumed wasn't for her. It led to mentorship opportunities she'd never considered. It made her the kind of leader who ensures other students with nontraditional backgrounds can see themselves reflected—and actually supported—in this profession.
What Keeps Her Going When Everything Else Falls Apart
Ask Sydney what's carried her through, and she'll tell you: resilience, empathy, and determination.
Her resilience wasn't built in a classroom, it was forged through homelessness, through choosing between vet school and survival, through trauma that would have ended most people's journeys before they started. Those experiences didn't derail her path. They clarified it.
Empathy shapes everything from how she treats animals, how she connects with clients who feel invisible in traditional veterinary spaces, how she shows up for classmates struggling in silence.
Determination is the thing that keeps her moving when stopping feels easier. And trust us, there have been moments when stopping felt a lot easier.
One of the hardest decisions she's ever made? Choosing to stay in veterinary school during periods when survival took priority over success. Staying meant asking for help. It meant being vulnerable in a profession that often mistakes vulnerability for weakness. It meant pressing forward when every logical voice said to quit.
Those experiences now inform how she supports other students navigating impossible choices between their education and their basic needs.
Success Doesn't Have a Standard Timeline
If Sydney could talk to her younger self, here's what she'd say: You're not behind. You're building something different.
Because here's the truth we don't talk about enough in veterinary medicine: Success gets measured against starting lines that most students never had access to. Privilege shapes opportunity in this profession, and we pretend it doesn't.
That belief drives everything Sydney wants to change about veterinary education:
Greater equity in access to mentorship and resources
Dismantling the financial barriers that keep talented, passionate students out
Ensuring compassionate care is never dependent on a client's income
Actually listening to underrepresented voices instead of talking over them
Burnout Isn't a Personal Failing—It's a Systemic Problem
Sydney sees burnout as one of the most critical challenges facing veterinary medicine right now. But unlike the industry narratives that tell veterinarians to meditate more or practice better self-care, she's calling out the actual problems:
Educational debt that crushes dreams before they start. Inequitable access to opportunities. Limited mental health support. Care models that were never designed to be sustainable.
Real change doesn't come from asking individuals to be more resilient. It comes from supporting veterinarians as whole humans and redesigning broken systems that serve neither providers nor patients.
Five Years from Now
Sydney envisions herself practicing access-to-care and community-based veterinary medicine. Mentoring students from underrepresented backgrounds. Expanding programs for first-generation and low-income veterinary students.
Most importantly? Being living proof that students like her don't just survive veterinary medicine—they thrive in it.
Her mission is straightforward but revolutionary: Ensure that animals and the people who love them are never left behind because of socioeconomic barriers.
Through advocacy, mentorship, and community-centered care, Sydney Paris is showing us what leadership in veterinary medicine can look like when we stop gatekeeping and start building real access.
The profession has a choice: Keep pretending that everyone starts from the same place, or listen to voices like Sydney's that are pointing toward a more equitable, sustainable, and compassionate future.
We're betting on the latter.
