Stress and Support

Hi Everyone!

 So, it’s the Friday of our first week back from Thanksgiving break and on Monday of this week, we finished our first (and only) ocular anatomy practical. Being able to spend Thanksgiving break with my family was definitely a lot of fun. It was nice to have a breather from class for a couple of days and eat delicious food, but of course, the school grind didn’t stop as we had to study for the practical! I will say though that I definitely thought going home for Thanksgiving during undergrad was a much needed break, but being able to relax after going through our first and second round of midterms and our first practical was even more rewarding and definitely much more needed than during undergrad! For this blog post, I want to discuss the different things that can cause stress during optometry school, the way I manage stress, and finally my support system.

The Stress


As you can imagine, optometry school is stressful! We are in class (most days) for about 6 hours, we go home (or to the library) and study, eat dinner, try to relax for a bit, go to bed, and wake up and do it all over again the next day. Then add to that the extra stress of midterms, practicals, and finals all while we are trying to juggle clubs, relationships and just living our daily lives. Combined, all of these things can seem very overwhelming, and they are if you don’t manage them. Luckily, I have found a couple ways to do this. Three things I do to manage stress/destress are to create a weekly schedule, watch TV, and to talk to my parents, sister, or boyfriend about things other than optometry.

As previously stated, the first thing that I do to manage stress is to create a weekly schedule for myself. Luckily, our class has a class Google calendar that was created by a classmate that we all have access to and that is constantly updated if there are any schedule changes. Also, our class secretary sends our weekly schedule via email at the beginning of each week. My strategy is to go over our weekly schedule and try to map out what club meetings I will attend and what I will study each day. Depending on whether or not I have a midterm/ practical that week or in the upcoming week my weekly schedule can fluctuate between one of three different scenarios. The first scenario is during weeks that we don’t have any midterms that week or in the upcoming week. During this time, I can create a schedule that the most relaxed. I am able to study for classes at the pace that I want to, and can any attend club meetings that occur during that week. The second scenario is during weeks in which we have no midterms that week but that there is one coming up the next week. During these weeks, I plan more specifically. Generally, I can still attend club meetings, and I can still study for all subjects, but my studying is more streamlined on material for the upcoming midterm. Finally, the third scenario is during weeks of the midterm or practical, and this schedule is the most stringent. During these weeks, I don’t generally attend club meeting that are scheduled for days earlier in the week prior to the midterm. Also, all of my attention goes into studying for that specific midterm, so any new material we have learned in other classes, I will push back studying until after the midterm. Having this weekly schedule for myself definitely cuts down on stress.

The other things, also as I previously mentioned, that I like to do to de-stress include watching TV and talking to my parents, sister, and boyfriend. After being in class and then studying after class, curling into bed and watching TV when I get home in the evening is the perfect thing to look forward to. Watching TV is something that allows me to not have to think about anything optometry and allows me to be able to relax before bed. Also, talking to my parents, sister or boyfriend about their days and the things they are doing is another stress reliever. Talking to them allows me to, again, focus on things other than class material and it helps me to keep my relationships with them strong during this time!

 The Support


Support is such an important part of optometry, or any professional school, that many people tend to forget about. For me, my support system comes again from my parents, sister and boyfriend, but also from a certain professor and finally from optometry school classmates. I love having a support group that is full of such different people, because they all support me in different ways.

First, my group is filled with my parents, boyfriend, and sister and they each support me in different ways. My boyfriend is always there to encourage me to continue studying and reminds me to keep pushing through even though things are very hard! My parents always help to keep my spirits high when I don’t do so well on a test and always remind me that I need to get enough sleep each night! Finally my sister supports me by taking a lighthearted approach to things, so she is always there to make me laugh.

The next aspect of my support group is a certain professor here at the College of Optometry (I would definitely recommend other students use a professor for support as well). Support from a professor is great because they have taught so many optometry school students so they can give you advice on the best ways to be successful. We have such an awesome group of professors, and you will definitely be talking to all of them throughout the year, but you will most likely find one that you connect with the most and feel the most comfortable talking to. The professor I connect with the most is the perfect support for me because they are always reminding me that I can do it, and also reminds me that I would not have been selected for optometry school if the admissions committee didn’t think that I could master the curriculum. These reminders are the perfect boost for me because they reiterate to me that I will make it through and that I will be able to learn everything!

My final support comes from classmates. Since we are all going through the same thing, it is always nice to talk to them about things that we are stressed about or concepts that we may not understand. Our class has a very supportive environment, so we help each other to understand the material and go through the concepts. In general, different people are stronger than others at certain subjects, so it helps to study with people who have different strengths than you. This helps because you are able to teach others the subjects you are good at, but also, sometimes it helps to hear concepts explained by a classmate as opposed to the professor. Also, everyone takes in information differently, so it also helps to hear how others understand the material because it may give you a new way to think about the concept that you would have never considered alone.

I hope this blog post gave you all some insights into the stress and support of optometry school! I will be writing my next blog after finals are over (we only have 13 days left until the end of the semester!) and will be about my overall takeaway from this first half of the school year!

Random Side Note


I wanted to take this as an opportunity to discuss the Hepatitis B vaccine. The vaccine for Hepatitis B is one that everyone received when they were born, however, as you age, you may lose immunity to it. As optometry school students, we were required to test to see if we had immunity to the disease and I, along with some other students in our class, were actually not immune. I definitely would have had no idea that I was not immune to Hepatitis B unless I had gone through all of these vaccine requirements for optometry school. I say all of this to inform you all that you may not be immune the Hepatitis B either, and that I definitely recommend going to the doctor to test your immunity.

Okay, I think that is everything for this post! Good luck to everyone taking finals and I will be blogging again very soon!