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!

Hello Everyone!

My name is Taylor Williams, and I am a first year student here at The Ohio State College of Optometry. Last week, and continuing to Monday, was our first round of midterms, so it has definitely been a crazy and busy time for us Opt. 1s (first year optometry school students)! I would like to use this first blog post to talk a little bit about myself, why I chose optometry and Ohio State, and about my experience in the first 6 weeks of optometry school.

About Me

I am a Columbus native and was born and raised in a suburb right outside of the city. Since I lived in that same area all throughout high school, for undergrad, I decided to get out of Ohio and experience a different part of the country. I went to North Carolina where I attended North Carolina A&T State University, a moderately sized HBCU (historically black college/ university) in Greensboro, NC, and I received my Bachelors of Science degree in Biology. Coming back to Ohio for Optometry School has definitely been a transition, but one that I am enjoying every minute of! I love being back home with my family, meeting new people, and having a lot of new experiences.

Why I Chose Optometry and Ohio State

For as long as I can remember going to the eye doctor, I remember always having a great experience. From being asked if I saw better with “1 or 2” to getting fitted for my new glasses, I was always excited when it came time for my annual eye exam. When I told my optometrist about my interest, he suggested that if I was still interested in the field in high school that I could shadow him, and that’s exactly what I did! After shadowing him and working in his practice during my senior year of high school, I completely fell in love with the profession. One thing that I loved about the field was that optometrists have a daily impact on patient’s lives by performing eye exams that improve vision and detect different diseases. Another thing that I loved about the field was that optometrists have the option to specialize in pediatric eye care, low vision, or even vision therapy!

From then on, I fully committed myself to doing whatever I had to do to become an optometrist. This included majoring in biology and learning everything I could about optometry. When it came time to apply to optometry school during the summer before my senior year of college, I was definitely a mix of emotions! I decided to apply to five optometry schools, however, Ohio State, since my freshman year of college, had always been my favorite for many of reasons. First, and most importantly, I wanted earn my degree from one of the top optometry programs in the country. Secondly, I wanted to be close to home, and finally, I had always wanted to become a Buckeye! After I found out I was accepted, I was completely over the moon. Not only had I been accepted to optometry school, I had been accepted at Ohio State! Becoming an optometrist is one of my biggest aspirations, and this acceptance was the first step to my dream coming true! Throughout the rest of my senior year of undergrad and all throughout the summer, I could not wait for optometry school to start! I must say, these first six weeks have lived up to their hype.

My Experience in the First Six Weeks

We started on Friday, August 21^st with our first day of orientation. During orientation, we were able to meet our professors, Dean Zadnik, and interact with our classmates. A couple of us were able to get together over the summer, however, for those that I hadn’t already met, it was definitely fun to finally put a face to the names of classmates I had “friended” on Facebook. At the end of the day, we were invited to the EYE house to meet 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th year students, which was also really fun! It was great to hear from them about the things we could look forward to in upcoming years. The weekend’s festivities didn’t end there, though. On Sunday, we were invited to a big sib/little sib picnic at Fred Beekman Park. There, we were able to meet our big sib (a second year student), and they were able to give us advice about how to be successful during our first year of optometry school. On Monday, August 24^th, we had another day of orientation. During Monday afternoon we were able to interact with students from other professional schools including students of the medical, dental, and pharmacy schools just to name a few. This interaction was very beneficial because during the session, we took time to discuss the duties of each profession and we discussed how all of our professions interacted in ways that we weren’t even aware.

Tuesday the 25^th of August was our first day of class, and ever since then, it feels like these first six weeks have flown by. Reflecting back, I am so amazed by all of the information we have already learned, and still can’t believe how many different processes really goes on in the eye. The classes we are taking this semester are General Anatomy, Pathophysiology I, Ocular Anatomy, Geometric Optics, Practice of Optometry, Introduction to Primary Care Testing I, and Optometric Career Options and Financing. What I love about optometry school is the fact that everything that we are learning about pertains to things we will see in the future with our patients. Everything in classes like Ocular Anatomy and Geometric Optics pertains to the eyes or lenses, but in classes like Pathophysiology and General Anatomy where we learn about general diseases that can affect the entire body, our professors always do a good job of explaining how these diseases would manifest in the eye.

Being very frank, optometry school is hard! It is not like undergrad where you could study a week before a test and be okay, or maybe forget some of the information you learned in classes like sociology or pottery because you didn’t really need it for your future. All of the information that we are learning is information that we have to retain and really understand because we will be using all of it in the future. Also, I’m definitely not able to study only a week in advance anymore. I have to stay on top of the material and study every night, so I don’t get behind when test time rolls around. It has definitely been a transition learning how to study more effectively and retain information for tests, but the fact that I enjoy all of the material that is being taught has really helped!

These six weeks have been a lot of work, but also so much fun! I’m excited to become even closer to my classmates, and learn even more material this semester, next semester, and for the next three years! I can’t wait to see what experiences are in store for me as a buckEYE!