The Illinois College of Optometry Student Blog

There’s no doubt about it- first year was a lot to handle. Looking back at how we took three exams per week is astonishing to me. The current first years are, dare I say, lucky. Their class had a curriculum change and now only has two exams per week. It’s funny how I say “only,” because that is still truly impressive and a ton of studying. However, after a much needed relaxing summer off, it is back into full optometry mode for second year students. As soon as we got back, so

Half way through our second year, the class of 2016 has had plenty of experience in lab. By now, we’re all comfortable with practically pressing our faces together for Direct Ophthalmoscopy, or contorting the faces of our patients to get a good look for BIO. I’d like to give a few pointers on simple etiquette in lab that we’ve all learned since first year. Some of this may seem obvious, but as we get more comfortable and get into a routine, we often fall into bad habits uncon

HOORAY! I’m officially a third year! So this is how it happened: One day, I woke up, and I’m a third year. No, seriously, it felt that way. Every once in a while, I get the feeling that school is never going to end, and I’m just going to drown in huge piles of assignments, labs, practicals and exams. Then, one day, it was all over. There’s no more pharmacology to study for, we just have to know it for clinic. No more PAP observation sessions, we’re going to be in our own room

I have my practical in a week from now on performing BIO (binocular indirect ophthalmoscopy), three-mirror gonioscopy, Goldmann tonometry, and 78/90D (biomicroscopic indirect ophthalmoscopy). So like anyone else who has their practical this coming week (half the class), I had to go and sit as a patient, as well as make time to practice on other students. This awesome Monday, I had a pharmacology exam that I had to pull yet another all-nighter to study for (there were about 10