I am a current student at nova, and I will try to answer your questions the best I can....
1) Living down here can be very expensive. I live in Sunforest across from the school alone, and I pay a lot, but I accept it in order to have a place to myself. Many people have roommates of course and that helps immensely with cost. I would also add that many of the other schools that I an option with (NECO, SoCal, Western, Pacific) are also in even higher rent areas....kind of goes with the territory with how most of the schools are in huge urban areas and you likely won't want to drive to far to find lower cost housing.
2) I picked NOVA because I disagree completely with the idea that the asthetic stuff doesn't matter. This is a huge campus, with countless athletic fields, a 3-story gym you have unlimited use of, many pools, intramural, campus social events, etc...the big thing I learned in my time since getting here is that having efficient outlets from school is just as important as getting study time. Being able to walk or have a 5 min drive to most anything I need or to meet with friends helps immensely. In addition to this, the fact that you aren't just some random students on campus studying amongst undergrads or the same 50 people matters. There is a very positive scholastic feel to the HPD building and surrounding, and when you don't feel like studying anymore, having hundreds of people around that are going through something similar is a benefit.
3) Regrets and surprises....ok, first of all, I went very low-rent housing when I first started here and that is a bad idea. I came from northern New Hampshire, and a bad neighborhoos down here is a really bad neighborhood....Also, don't go in acting as if you are going to be Mr/Ms super student and not ask for help. This place will humble you, guaranteed. The people that thought it was going to be a breeze or were too prideful to get help are either miserable or gone by now.
4) Anatomy is hard....ave of a 64 on the 1st test, but the last one on head and neck is much better. You basically get no narrowing down, no review, just about 600 pages of a textbook you're expected to know. Optics took out the most people this year anyway, so lookout for that as well. 1st semester classes are mostly gen-eds tought by a rotation of teachers, all will different styles, and notes in about 20 different places. 1st year is not representative of the rest of your time here, that I know for sure. 1st year is basically the memorization Olympics. 2nd year is almost all conceptual, actually think like a Dr stuff...some of our best 1st year students got hammered 2nd and 3rd, so keep that in mind.
5) Prep? My sincere advice is to get completely wild and insane for about 6 months before you come here. Get away from optometry. Run as far away from eyes as possible...I bartended the summer before I came here and stayed out until 6 am every night. This is an ultra-marathon, so when you can get away, get far far away....
6) Bad stuff....ok, in the interest of keeping it real, here goes: A lot of your 1st year classes you will basically be teaching yourself. You will get powerpoints you print up in EVERY class and you will try to learn from those, and in some classes going to lecture does almost no good for you at all. Also, there is an undeniably strong (and in my view, toxic) mentality here of what I call "being a hard-a** for the sake of being one"...Test are NOT 5-6 at a time (we used to be in blocks years ago, and for some reason people think we still have it). They are generally on Mondays at 8am for some (sadistic) reason. You will at times have 2-3 in a week, but that is rare in the beginning. My biggest complaint is this for my school: There are certain classes/profs/tests that EVERY YEAR the average is disasterously bad, and nothing is ever done about it. There is no concept that having 100 students, most of which will amaze you with their work ethic (another surprise), all getting a 65 on a test is no longer our fault....very frustrating.
7) 1st year = Tons of rote memorization, very frustrating teachers in some classes, and a lot of learning. 2nd year = hell. you can literally walk into the library and pick out the 2nd years....nothing I tell you will do it justice. 3rd year = amazing. Work in the gorgeous clinic, see real people, and have incredibly good instructors (they grade kinda biased, but no one cares, you learn A LOT!)
I really hope this helps, and that someone would have told me some of this when I started. See you in August....just say "this guy who wrote me a novel on the Opt forum" and people will know who you're talking about! Good luck....
And that while there is a lot of course work, there are still plenty of times when you won't have a class or lab. Shock of course would be how expensive everything is!
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