First Week: Check

Okay. So...I'm just going to take a moment to sit here and breathe/think about all that happened this week.

WOW!

So, technically I'm not quite done with this week because we still have a case presentation to sit in on for our Basic Science class, or as most of the opto and dental students have been calling, BASI. But we were released early from our theories and methods lab almost an hour and a half early so I had some time to type some of this stuff up.

Okay, so...First day! All we had on Monday was our Optometric Business Management class for two hours, which I actually really enjoyed. We were required to purchase a 3" 3-ring binder with a multitude of tab dividers that will serve as our professional portfolio for the next 4+ years. Basically, it will be something portable that we can keep everything from our immunization records to anything else we could possibly need for practicing in other various states around the country. It was super interesting listening to everything we will be doing and so far it sounds like we will get a lot of valuable information during this class.

After that class, they had a ton of pizza for us to eat for lunch (they're REALLY good about feeding us here) while we listened to upperclassmen optometry students tell us about the several different optometry related clubs and organizations going on currently. Of course, ALL of them sound super exciting and I will most definitely try and find at least 1 or 2 to get involved in.

Our Tuesday through Thursday is where the bulk of our classes started to settle in. Just over the course of these 3 days, we had fourteen hour long lectures going over tons and tons of information. And the best part is...we already have a test over all of it this Tuesday right after labor day at 7 AM in the morning. I've been doing a couple hours of studying every night so far this week, but I think the majority of my "down-to-business" time will be this weekend. Fortunately, because of Labor Day, we have Monday off, so I will have all 3 days to get a lot of good study time in.

While there's a lot of info, I'm doing my best not to freak out too much because almost everything we have talked about so far I have at least covered once or twice in my physiology undergrad at U of A. So things from basic cell biology to a little more advanced biology to biochemistry will be covered on our Tuesday test. I'm hoping that helps, but I'll still have to devote a bit of time to get ALL of it down to where I'm comfortable explaining it.

All of the lectures have been presented with powerpoint slides (which most of us are pretty much used to). Just for this exam, there are a total of 373 slides between all the different lectures. Just in case you were wondering.

Friday (this morning) we had our first lecture for our Clinical Services - Theory and Methods, which our professor made interesting for us (i.e. playing music and YouTube videos for us throughout). We had to individually introduce ourselves and tell everyone where we were from, something interesting about ourselves, and end with an "optometry" word. I was one of the last to be called and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to come up with any more words since mine kept getting taken, but Fovea hadn't been used yet, so that ended up being mine.

This was my favorite of the videos, mainly because of how intense the music was. 

Right after, we headed on over to the lab for the first time, which has got to be the coolest lab I've ever been in. Upon walking in, you just see rows and rows of your typical "optometry patient" chairs with all of the typical optometry equipment by each of them, from the phoropter (the big binocular looking things most people associate with "Does it look better at 1 or 2?") to the slit lamps, which are the things you sit your chin in while the eye doctor takes a look at your eyes with various colored lights.

Today was mostly about exploring some of the equipment we'll be using this quarter (i.e. learning the names of them) and getting to know the rest of our class by having to do a "scavenger hunt". For example, we had to find a person who had the same color eyes, was born the same month, someone who played an instrument (since I had said music about my interesting fact before, my name got put down a lot on other people's papers) someone who had kids, etc. The hardest one was finding someone with a September birthday oddly enough. I finally found one other girl and weirdly enough our birthdays were the exact same day (September 10th...just over a week!)

And that's pretty much it! Our dress code is our galaxy blue scrubs or business causal (except for lab days which are only scrubs), so scrubs are literally what I've been wearing all week since we've been sitting in classrooms for hours and hours and I wanted to at least be comfortable while taking a plethora of notes and trying to pay attention.

First Day of School

So next week, just a 4 day week with our first test being bright and early on Tuesday morning (they told us they want us here by 6:40 AM), so that will be super fun.

I'm also going to try and start a short "optometry fact" at the end of each of my posts, whether its something I just learned or something I knew. Since I used the word "Fovea" for my optometry word, I will use that.

Optometry Fact
Fovea (n): A part of the eye located in the center of the macula region of the retina. This part of the eye is most responsible for our sharp central vision for doing things like reading, driving, or any other visually detailed activity.

Post-Orientation Post

Ok, ok, so sorry I missed my Friday window of opportunity to put up a post. So instead, I am sitting here on my last Saturday typing up a quick update of the past week shenanigans. So here we go.

ORIENTATION!

So on Tuesday, the day started off with making my way to the school (for the first time since my interview) at about 7:15 in the morning. It was pretty easy to find since all I had to do was pretty much follow all of the out of state cars.

Upon checking in, I was told to check in with the part of the admissions office (I'm assuming since they never officially checked off that I had completed my Bachelor's degree) and then they told me that they were still waiting on my transcripts from one of the Valley's community colleges here. I said that was interesting considering I'd never even attended there. Since that was a mistake, they opened up my transcripts on the computer and pretty much said "just kidding, you're free to go."

So I finished checking in, picked up orientation schedules, got a free flash drive, and had my picture taken for my student ID.

I wore a blazer (with jeans) and everything for this picture and you can't even tell under that pile of hair. Oh well.

The rest of the day consisted of them feeding us breakfast, sitting through lots of people explaining policies, etc. to us, them feeding us lunch, sitting through some more people talking, and then a break until 5 which is when we had our optometry school mixer and we finally got to really see who was all in our class (the Dental students and many of the other grad program's students were there as well...which mainly means there was just a lot of people there). They fed us again, we introduced ourselves, and then went on our merry way. 

Wednesday we showed up again in the morning and got to hear about every single class that we will be taking for the next four years...which wasn't intimidating or overwhelming at all (sarcasm). After that scary talk, they fed us more food (we got really spoiled here) and then got taken to a class room with EVERYONE'S equipment all laid out on the tables. We got called a few at a time and had to go through every single piece of our equipment and sign and initial that everything was accounted for (since we were paying over $4000 for everything). We then got our locker assignments and got to go home. I spent the rest of that night taking everything apart, exploring all the different tools, and even testing out my lens set and making my "approximate" prescription of glasses with the trial glasses. I was proud that I could pretty much see out of them.

On Thursday we pretty much spent wrapping up everything and listening to more people talk. They fed us one last time (sadly) and then we got to talk to a lot of second years and third year optometry students and ask them a many amount of questions about what to expect. As well as calm us down about it not being as hard as they were making it sound.

That concluded official orientation and we were done. Friday afternoon was when we had to come back to the school and pick up our new laptops that we had to purchase through the school. Each of us got a brand new MacBook Pro and had to install some software while we were there and then got to take them home.

Now...this is the first time I've ever owned or really used a Mac. I've used some of my friends' Macs before, but that mainly consisted of me trying to use it and asking them a lot of questions. So I spent a lot of yesterday and today trying to figure it out. But, since I'm writing this as we speak on it right now, I think it's safe to say that I am slowly figuring it out. 

And here we are at Saturday! I am successfully relaxing and trying to enjoy my last weekend of freedom because let's be honest, the next 10 weekends or so will be spent with lots of studying since we have weekly tests on Tuesdays. 

Which brings me to my last point. Technically our schedule changes a little each week, but for the most part, this is generally our schedule for the fall quarter. 

And on Monday we start. Lots of us will be sporting our Galaxy Blue scrubs on the first day of class. Or we could wear business casual clothes. Such a hard decision, right? I'm okay with wearing what feels like pajamas to school. :)

Next week I'll put up a quick post about the first week of classes. Until then, everyone else enjoy their week!

Back from my Hiatus

Okay, so I got a little behind the "every Friday" thing. Two weeks ago I was back from Iowa, but was in the process of moving my stuff into my new place and had no internet set up yet. One week ago I went camping with a bunch of my old high school friends and spent the day preparing and driving down there (which is a whole 'nother story itself...it was so fun). And today I am back at my new place and was able to get internet set up earlier in the week so...here I am.

In the realm of optometry school speak, I've been running around getting doctor's appointments done with before orientation. While I was at home, I visited my optometrist and got an updated contact lens prescription, went to the dentist and had my first ever cavity filled, and got a physical done specifically for school. I also had to go get a TB skin test (which I've never done before) and had to make sure all my immunizations were up to date...which I just got done today. My left arm is a little sore on account of the Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis) shot I got this afternoon.

I'll be spending the next few days unpacking (I'm procrastinating that) and organizing. This Tuesday our 3-day orientation starts all day and runs through Thursday. I'm getting super excited and nervous all at the same time, mostly because I'm starting all over again.

On an unrelated note, I did obtain a cute little pet this week. Her name is Tesla, after the physicist and the SI unit for measuring a magnetic field.

Tesla the Robo Dwarf Hamster

Next week I'll write all about the fun shenanigans that happened during optometry school orientation. :)