Hey everyone, I came across this forum googling information on optometry schooling and what it takes.
I have a few questions, well... a few concerns.
First off, a little about me... I am currently in the second semester of my second year in undergraduate school. I am from Tennessee, approximately five or so hours away from Memphis, TN, home of SCO so I guess you can guess my ambitions. I have wanted to be an optometrist ever since the sixth grade. I have always had a fascination with the eye and how important it is in everyday life for me, how we see, correcting vision loss, etc. I have always been a pretty detailed artist and I do graphic designing as a hobby, so my vision has always been important to me, and when I shadowed my optometrist back in sixth grade I immediately was sure of what I wanted to do. Aside from that, I want to help people in a unique way. When I was five years old, I had a rare tumor on my mastoid bone, I went through chemotherapy and such. I was lucky to be alive, so I am set on helping people's health issues in a unique way. I was unable to attend my first year at a public school, so my mother home schooled me. I continued to be home schooled until the fifth grade. I breezed through high school with relatively good grades. Never really struggling to make much lower than an A. When I came to college though, things changed. Fast. I struggled my first year, making a few C's and struggling for A's. My GPA wasn't very high, but it is steadily increasing. I'm learning how to handle my classes and transitioning into adulthood. Last semester I ended with a C in organic chem 1. This semester though, it's time to make a difference in myself. I am enrolled in organic chem 2, and I am a mere five points shy of having a perfect 100%. I have yet to take all of my gen. eds, so those should boost my GPA up some more as well. I intend on shadowing a few optometrists this summer, and I have been working at Lenscrafters for over a year now as a lab tech and will continue to do so. I don't know if working at Lenscrafters will benefit me all that much, but I was curious as to how important shadowing hours is to optometry schools. I also was really concerned with if I am just out of luck. I can't see myself doing anything else as a profession, but sometimes I feel as if I have already messed up with my GPA being lower than the average pre-optometry student.
I have a few questions, well... a few concerns.
First off, a little about me... I am currently in the second semester of my second year in undergraduate school. I am from Tennessee, approximately five or so hours away from Memphis, TN, home of SCO so I guess you can guess my ambitions. I have wanted to be an optometrist ever since the sixth grade. I have always had a fascination with the eye and how important it is in everyday life for me, how we see, correcting vision loss, etc. I have always been a pretty detailed artist and I do graphic designing as a hobby, so my vision has always been important to me, and when I shadowed my optometrist back in sixth grade I immediately was sure of what I wanted to do. Aside from that, I want to help people in a unique way. When I was five years old, I had a rare tumor on my mastoid bone, I went through chemotherapy and such. I was lucky to be alive, so I am set on helping people's health issues in a unique way. I was unable to attend my first year at a public school, so my mother home schooled me. I continued to be home schooled until the fifth grade. I breezed through high school with relatively good grades. Never really struggling to make much lower than an A. When I came to college though, things changed. Fast. I struggled my first year, making a few C's and struggling for A's. My GPA wasn't very high, but it is steadily increasing. I'm learning how to handle my classes and transitioning into adulthood. Last semester I ended with a C in organic chem 1. This semester though, it's time to make a difference in myself. I am enrolled in organic chem 2, and I am a mere five points shy of having a perfect 100%. I have yet to take all of my gen. eds, so those should boost my GPA up some more as well. I intend on shadowing a few optometrists this summer, and I have been working at Lenscrafters for over a year now as a lab tech and will continue to do so. I don't know if working at Lenscrafters will benefit me all that much, but I was curious as to how important shadowing hours is to optometry schools. I also was really concerned with if I am just out of luck. I can't see myself doing anything else as a profession, but sometimes I feel as if I have already messed up with my GPA being lower than the average pre-optometry student.
