Meeting Minutes 9/24/2019

At our second meeting of the year, we had two guest speakers from the Ohio State College of Optometry visit us! Jaime Antonio, a second year Optometry student at the university, spoke to us about the American Optometric Student Association and new opportunities for pre-optometry students. Shawn Gilbert, our club’s advisor and the Assistant Director of Admissions, provided the club with a lot of valuable information about the Ohio State University College of Optometry. Thank you, Jaime and Shawn, for taking the time to come in and speak to us!

Jaime is the trustee elect for Ohio State in the AOSA, which is an organization with optometry schools represented from across the United States, as well as Canada and Puerto Rico. Through AOSA, students receive the opportunity to engage with optometrists on a variety of topics and there are even opportunities to speak to state legislators about important optometric topics. They also participate in service projects such as Realeyes, which is a program focused on bringing vision education to young students in elementary and middle schools. Jaime also let us know that the AOSA recently released an opportunity for pre-optometry students to register as members. As a pre-optometry student, this allows you the opportunity to ask questions to current optometry students or anything related to the optometry field. There is also a biannual magazine called “Foresight”, and there are opportunities for pre-optometry students to write select passages to be published in the magazine. For more information or if you are interested in becoming a pre-optometry member of the AOSA, please visit www.theaosa.org.

Shawn explained that OSU is unique because it is apart of a larger campus and there are lots of opportunities to interact with other health care specialties, which will ultimately be extremely useful as a practicing optometrist. There are also a multitude of resources available to students because of this fact as well. The student base accepted into OSU is small enough that faculty can still focus on each and every student. By the end of your fourth and final year, you will have conducted full exams on an average of 1800 patients. In addition, you will conduct school screenings, case reviews, and Eyewear Gallery appointments and interact with even more patients. Each subspecialty area is required to be learned during your four years at Ohio State in order to give you the most comprehensive education of the field. There are also many practice management courses, so students can learn how to best run an practice when they graduate. When it comes to applying, Shawn suggests applying as soon as possible during the application window from July 1st to March 1st. A holistic review of all factors of your applications are taken into consideration and it does not matter what your major is as long as you complete all the prerequisite courses. A test is required for admittance, but it does not have to be the OAT. Other professional tests are accepted as well. Three letters of recommendation are required, one from a professor, one from an optometrist, and one from a person of your choice. Furthermore, the Optometry school is currently constructing a new building that is projected to be completed around October 2020 and will house clinical rooms.

Thank you so much, Jaime and Shawn, for sharing so much great information!