First year?

[optocom]

For all current optometry students, how was your first year at optometry school?
how's the stress level? how much time did you spend studying each day? how difficult is the material? if you were moving to a completely different location, how did you handle the move? any tips for new incoming freshman? thanks in advance

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[Shnurek]

Harder than I ever studied in my life. But I think that is typical for anyone going to graduate school. 10% of the class fails first year on average. 5/7 of those people make it up, 2 don't. So there is only a slim chance you have to repeat the year purely because of academic reasons at least at my school. I'd say the material is easier than medical school because you do not have to know all the tendons of the foot and other extraneous information. I spent on average about 2 hours studying a day. During finals/midterms I did nothing but eat, sleep and study.

 

[QueenieCSS]

For all current optometry students, how was your first year at optometry school?
how's the stress level? how much time did you spend studying each day? how difficult is the material? if you were moving to a completely different location, how did you handle the move? any tips for new incoming freshman? thanks in advance

In my opinion very few classes, if any, will be tougher than classes you took in undergraduate. The difficult part is just the overwhelming amount of material you have to learn. My first semester I had 8 classes and 6 labs - quite the workload! And it isn't like in undergrad when you can learn it and flush it. It all builds on each other and you need to know it for your profession.

As for tips - just try to stay on top of things and study a little bit every day, even if you don't feel like you need to, or you have time before the next exam. This will make studying for exams easier because you have already been over the material. Because if the other schools are anything like ours, once the exams start (like 2-3 weeks in) they don't stop until finals are over!

Good luck