SuperSara said:
Hey Caliente,
Just curious - why did you decline the offer?
Sara
I have commitment issues,
For me, if I had done optometry, it would have been the end of the line...... most probably I would be an optometrist until I retired at ~65. I know myself - I am not very adventurous in this regard. I am not the type of person who would practice as an OD for 10 years, then suddenly decide to do something else (by sacrificing a decent and respectable job/profession). Especially if that something else required re-training or additional schooling. After a 4-yr undergrad and an OD, I probably could not justify more (expensive!) schooling.
At this point in my life, I am not ready for such a big career committment. I opted to do something else that enables me to put off such a crucial decision until later; there are also more future lateral movement opportunities. Plus, I am not passionate about optometry. The main draws of the profession for me were: a) working on a daily basis with people, or "customers", and b) it being a respectable way to earn a decent living. As you can see, neither item is terribly
specific to optometry.
cansnowflake said:
I know they say they don't, but has anyone noticed if Waterloo gives a preference for internal applicants over external applicants?
I really don't think they have a huge preference, if any, for internal applicants. I was an external applicant - I neither live in Waterloo nor attended the university - and did not feel disadvantaged at any point. I was even offered early admission and did not have to interview! In truth, I was quite surprised by this because I had heard a rumour (false, as it turned out) that only internal applicants were offered early admission.
If there are proportionately more students from Waterloo in the OD program, it is most probably because they have had more exposure to the program (you'd be surprised at the number of people who never consider the profession and who don't know that Waterloo has the only English OD program in Canada....almost all these people have 20/20 vision, though
...so many have never even been to an OD before). Or, because they were considering optometry out of high school, they chose Waterloo for undergrad. I'm pretty sure Waterloo has a "pre-optometry" program for these dedicated and decisive students ..... unlike me, who is famously indecisive. In the end, I managed to make a decision without really making one at all
