for optometry students/grads: did you learn what you expected to learn in school?

[Smooth Operater]

Hello!

I have the feeling that some young pre-opt students including myself are not very informed about the curriculum that optometry students must go through. Most of my pre-opt friends expect starting learning about the eye right away. But, I've heard some other optometry students spending a lot of time learning the anatomy of internal organs that had nothing to do with the eye, or learning about chemical reactions that lipids or carbohydrates undergo.

Is this common in many optometry school?

Do OD students start learning general content and start to specialize on eye like med students?

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[cpw]

you start out learning a combination of the two. Gross anatomy, physiology, biochem, but you're also taking procedures, vision science, and optics. you have to take the basics to have something to build on.

 

[Smooth Operater]

hey thanx for the reply! Do you learn about medications and drugs? just wondering.

 

[r_salis]

hey thanx for the reply! Do you learn about medications and drugs? just wondering.

We get pharmacology 2nd year.

 

[rpames]

You will get general pharm and then ocular pharm.

My favorite saying I've heard was at an optometric seminar by an OD grad of 1972. He said, "I remember starting school thinking, 'this is going to be so easy, four years to learn about the eye...it is only the size of a pingpong ball.'" He then added, " It was a lot harder then I ever thought it was going to be."

I know some guys in my class how said they thought the same thing when they started.