Wow, thanks so much! It is a relief to have people like you helping me through this stressful time of sorting out my future.
In high school, I am currently taking as much AP courses possible. That would shorten the amount of time in undergraduate, would it not?
If I decided to also do a residency after my undergraduate, that would take a year, correct?
I hope you don't mind me asking, but you seem like a person with great knowledge in the optometry field - do you mind telling me exactly what you did to become an optometrist? For instance, college, school, residency, jobs, exams, etc. I would like to hear someone's pathway from high school to where they are now.
Yea AP classes help a lot. I took several AP and a couple classes at a local college during high school, so I transferred in about a semester's worth of credit. I also did a lot of summer school, which amounted to about 1 more semester. However, I worked a lot during school and took lighter loads during the regular semester (like 13 hours instead of the normal 15). So I only ended up graduating 1 semester early. You can definitely do that too, and it's a good move financially. But socially, I wish I hadn't finished early. I feel like I missed out on a lot of the senior year events because I was across the state working when all my friends were finishing their last year. So if you can, enjoy all four years of undergrad. It's a really fun time where you study a lot but make really close friendships too. Take advantage of the speakers that come to campus too! That won't be available again in life the way it is at a university...so take advantage while you can!
You're right that all residencies are 1 year. I *think* there are 2 year residencies for learning LASIK in Oklahoma, but I might be wrong on that. I think that's the only state that allows optometrists to do that procedure and has an optometry school (Kentucky also allows optometrists to do laser correction surgery, but does not have an opt school). In any case, every other residency is 1 year regardless of the topic. There are several areas of residencies. Most of them pay you a small stipend and you don't pay tuition - so I think it might be like $30k that they pay you. It's not much, but it helps with living expenses.
I am actually just about to start my first year of optometry school. My path was a little different than most people, because I graduated from college and worked for a couple years before I figured out that I wanted to pursue optometry. I also graduated with a degree in a humanities field, so I had to go back to school for 1.5 years to take all the science pre-req's. I applied to optometry schools in this last cycle and will be attending UC Berkeley School of Optometry starting this fall =D. So excited!
I did a lot of research about the field though, so what you are doing now will help big time! Read information on here, but take everything with a grain of salt. You have to remember that opinions expressed here are only part of the picture and some people on here are overly pessimistic OR overly optimistic. Take in what they say, but also look at other resources! Shadow lots of optometrists and in different settings. I've usually set up my shadowing experiences by someone I know asking their optometrist if I could shadow. But if you call up lots of offices, you are bound to find one that will be happy to have you shadow. Some are not okay with shadowing, but don't take it personally. They are just trying to protect patient privacy. Others have relationships with certain patients that they know will be okay with having someone shadow. Do private practice, group, commercial, military, hospital setting, etc. Each of them will help you better understand the field and how you see yourself practicing someday. Even different private or commercial practices will be run in entirely different ways. And some docs will be better than others about letting you truly shadow them, rather than just sticking you with the front desk staff for the day (this is helpful learning too, and is definitely something you want to see in a couple different offices, but it is not very reflective of your day-to-day work as an optometrist either). If you can start working Saturdays in a local office, that will give you lots of experience. I work full-time in an office now and am starting a log of things they do that i want to incorporate in my practice, and also things that I would do completely differently.
It's a really rewarding career, but there are a lot of challenges ahead for optometrists because the boundaries of what is within our scope of practice (or that of opticians and ophthalmologists) is constantly changing and affecting our patient base. So keep that in mind, but don't let that scare you away from it either.
Best of luck!