The Illinois College of Optometry Student Blog

To be honest, these past few months have been the most challenging of my life. It’s not that the curriculum at ICO has been challenging – I mean, it is, and it has always been, but that’s not the problem. It is the choices I make in trying to balance my health, my interests, school, and the rest of my life that have been a challenge. There was a time in my life where I could summarize my responsibilities in one sentence: go to school and don’t fail. It was even better if I co

This year, my classmates and I are being introduced into the clinic. We get to do what we came to optometry school to do. Sweet. The rules of the game: The class is broken down into two groups. Each group has six clinic shifts – one each week. One group gets to be in clinic for the first half of the quarter; The second group takes the second half. Students work in pairs to do clinical exams on real patients. They must perform the skills they know how to do. The Attending Clin

I’m the kind of person who likes to have a little bit of everything in his life. Variety is necessary for me to stay sane. I tend to get restless when I’m missing some aspect of my life, but then again, I also get bored when there’s too much of something in my life. So for second year, I promised myself that I would find my balance and do everything I wanted to do to the best of my ability. I was going to study harder, work harder, go out with my classmates and party harder,

I have two weeks before I leave Toronto for Chicago again. Things are starting to speed up now. There’s a lot to do and get ready for. This will be my second year at ICO, and I’m told that it’ll be different. This year, I’ve moved out of the RC into a small apartment complex that was once known as Unity Hall. The rooms are slightly smaller, but the ceilings are high and I get two arched windows in my room. That’s a fair trade, I think. I still have to pick up some furniture f