The Illinois College of Optometry Student Blog

This quarter, I am rotating at the Sidney Hillman Health Center and 3 other sites. Together, they encompass not only low vision, but also primary care, contact lenses, retinal disease, and advanced care. Sidney Hillman Health Center Sidney Hillman (SHHC) is a union and not a VA, which kind of took me off guard. During externship site selection, it was included in the VA category for Chicago-only students. Working at SHHC takes me back to clinic shifts at IEI; we have ICO facu

Summer time in Chicago always seems to move quickly (time becomes less noticeable when every second outside doesn’t hurt your face.) This year is no exception. Friends, family, work, and prep for school have been pulling me in all sorts of directions lately, but I have no complaints; my life is about to dramatically change! They say you don’t value what you have until it’s not there anymore. Time- precious, lovely, lazy, free time is what I am attempting to cherish as the clo

Two months. That’s right–in a mere 60 days my fellow classmates and I will enter the ICO for the first time as members of the class of 2017. What a surreal notion to put on paper (or, um, type on a keyboard). I’ve been arranging my ICO school forms over the past few months. This includes sending in all of my complete transcripts and school immunization forms, and little by little I am seeing the makings of true enrollment; that is, actually seeing myself as a student-doctor o