Guidance on switching careers to optometry

[marvelly]

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Hi Everyone,
I have a personal dilemma. I am in a transition phase in my life. I have a bio undergrad. degree and am currently working in the pharmaceutical industry. I am totally dissatisfied with my career. I have been trying to prepare myself financially and emotionally to go back to school. I want to switch careers and optometry school seems to fit me best.

However, I seem to be lost as I prepare myself for the OAT. Where do I start? I recently just started to brush up on my O.Chem & Math sections. I would like tips/guidance as to which books to use to study.

Should I take any courses that Kaplan offers? Since I work full-time, how long should I dedicate every day and for how long before I take the OAT? Has anyone else been where I am?

I am looking forward to hear some valuable suggestions and recommendations as to how I can brush up on my subjects. Please give some good advice.

Thanks a ton,
Marvelly.

 

[SIUE optkid]

Hi Everyone,
I have a personal dilemma. I am in a transition phase in my life. I have a bio undergrad. degree and am currently working in the pharmaceutical industry. I am totally dissatisfied with my career. I have been trying to prepare myself financially and emotionally to go back to school. I want to switch careers and optometry school seems to fit me best.

However, I seem to be lost as I prepare myself for the OAT. Where do I start? I recently just started to brush up on my O.Chem & Math sections. I would like tips/guidance as to which books to use to study.

Should I take any courses that Kaplan offers? Since I work full-time, how long should I dedicate every day and for how long before I take the OAT? Has anyone else been where I am?

I am looking forward to hear some valuable suggestions and recommendations as to how I can brush up on my subjects. Please give some good advice.

Thanks a ton,
Marvelly.

Well, ill give you rough answers to some of your questions.
study, gen chem, o chem, bio, physics.
for math just get comfortable with running problems in your head
in physics learn formulas and in o chem learn the reactions.

I used the Kaplan oat book with practice problems and tests. do the problems and the tests. there also is a practice test i believe it is on opted somewhere. i did that after my kaplan ones.

I believe i studied 2 weeks, but a month would be better. I would actually do kaplan problem much sooner than that to see how well your doing and manage your time accordingly.

If your want to put the money in for the course i know people that it has worked well for, although i have not done it. It may be a good idea to do the course if you no longer have your notebooks from the subjects you need to study.

I've never been in you position as im going in right out of college, but i hope i was at least a little helpful.

if i can help with anything let me know. Good luck to you!

 

[marvelly]

thank u. that was helpful. how many hours a day did u dedicate to studying?

 

[SIUE optkid]

well, i believe i spent the whole day (maybe 6-8 hours?) (i took it in august so its hard to remember) thats why spreading it out more would probably be very helpful. those practice tests take a couple hours i believe, and then theres the actual re-learning of the material which takes a lot of time.

 

[marvelly]

oh man! so i have a long way to go as far as prep. thanks again for sharing! 🙂

 

[WagsTale]

I am in the exact same position as you are marvelly! I'm a pharmacist and totally dissatisfied with my career. I have been searching this forum quite a bit to get ideas for OAT prep and what the application process is like. I don't know about you, but I do not have all of the required pre-req coursework completed. Unfortunately, my program did not require stats, general psych, nor 1 full year of physics. As such, I've got to take those courses prior to acceptance at any accredited college. 🙁

My plan is to dedicate the next couple summer months to studying Kaplan materials and sit for the OAT in late summer. I'm hoping that after studying Kaplan material I'll be able to at least get an average score even without any physics background. Then I will enroll in the courses I need to brush up on/complete for application. If necessary, I will again retake the OAT in December. At least this way, I can get an idea of where I stand, and can hopefully get all the necessary material submitted for early application. I wish you luck, and hope to be a fellow O.D. student in 2012!

 

[quackquack]

To the two posters currently dissatisfied with their careers, what made you realize optometry is right for you?

 

[WagsTale]

quackquack,

I had always had high hopes of one day owning a pharmacy. Unfortunately, the profession has completely sold itself out to commercial big chain business. As a result, there are very very few independently owned pharmacies around. Couple that with unbelievably low reimbursement rates from insurance, people's loyalty running only as deep as their dollar will stretch, and it is nearly impossible to make private ownership financially feasible. Not impossible, but extremely difficult. I've been out and practicing for 3 years, and I can see the writing on the wall.

On top of all that, I enjoy working with people. I've always been drawn to medicine, regardless of the specialty. Show me a career in medicine with high patient interaction, and I'm in! My brother is an optometrist, as well as two other close friends of mine, and all three talk tirelessly about how rewarding their careers are and how much they enjoy what they do. They truly enjoy their jobs on a daily basis. Not only that, but optometry is a profession/career that one can expect to practice for a very long time; provided that you stay current and knowledgeable. Unlike pharmacy in any typical retail setting, where I'm more likely to have a heart attack before I'm 30 than see retirement age. I am also fortunate enough to be fairly young, where this transition wouldn't be completely hair-brained. 😀

My new dream is to co-own an optometry practice with my brother. *Keeping my fingers crossed*

 

[paasnaas]

Hi Everyone,
I have a personal dilemma. I am in a transition phase in my life. I have a bio undergrad. degree and am currently working in the pharmaceutical industry. I am totally dissatisfied with my career. I have been trying to prepare myself financially and emotionally to go back to school. I want to switch careers and optometry school seems to fit me best.

However, I seem to be lost as I prepare myself for the OAT. Where do I start? I recently just started to brush up on my O.Chem & Math sections. I would like tips/guidance as to which books to use to study.

Should I take any courses that Kaplan offers? Since I work full-time, how long should I dedicate every day and for how long before I take the OAT? Has anyone else been where I am?

I am looking forward to hear some valuable suggestions and recommendations as to how I can brush up on my subjects. Please give some good advice.

Thanks a ton,
Marvelly.

I was in a similar situation as you. I was pre-med, but recently switched to pre-opt. I have always had a fascination for the power of medicine, but never really figured out what field of medicine I wanted to go into. I never saw myself becoming a surgeon, but there are many other enjoyable fields in the medical field that don't involve surgery. I switched to becoming pre-opt simply because I enjoy the field. After shadowing several optometrists I began to realize that this is a field that is definitely worth pursuing & it can be very rewarding personally (as it is for me 😀). You just have to take your time in finding what you like. But in the end, I believe its about of what you make of it. I have had jobs in the past where I didn't like, but I would always have that mindset of making the best of it ever day. Because in today's society with all the news about people loosing there jobs and of how people who have lost everything due to these recent tornado strikes in Missouri, you are blessed to even have a job! But make sure you shadow some optometrists before jumping the gun to optometry.

Since I was pre-med for most of my undergrad years, I took the mcat, but decided not to apply to medical school because I wanted to go to optometry school instead. I haven't taken the oat yet, but I can say that studying for the mcat has definitely prepared me for the oat.

I took a kaplan mcat course and found it very useful and worth it, but it takes up a lot of time and effort. It was expensive, but it helped. I believe it comes down to your teacher, and I was very lucky of having a great mcat teacher. The examkracker books for mcat physics, chemistry, and o-chem are also very useful. Most of the mcat material is pretty similar to oat material except for the biological sciences (there are differences in which topics are covered). I also heard that oat destroyer is pretty good (haven't used it yet, but was reading reviews).

hope this helps. & don't be so hard on yourself, you have a bright future in front of you, it just takes time to get here 😉

if you have any questions feel free to ask 🙂

 

[marvelly]

Thank you so much for your input. While studying for the OAT, I am figuring out why I am making the switch to opt.

 

[BlackHawk77]

You've picked the right choice. I was trying to schedule an eye exam at Costco and was told the next available spot would be one month later. Additionally, optometrists tend to have less amount of stress at work compared to other health professionals.