The Illinois College of Optometry Student Blog

The first thing to do when you failed an exam at ICO: Don’t Panic. A lot of people told me that grad school would be rough. I would say, “Yeah, I’ll have to work and study hard,” but on the inside, my pride and ego would think, “I’ll be alright. I can handle myself just fine.” …Then, the vengeance and fury of grad school struck down like a two-ton hammer on top of my skull!! Failing an exam annihilated my pride and ego and left me completely dumbstruck. I thought I was ready

During my orientation week, there was a quote from one of our guest speakers that resonated with me: “Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.” I learned this all too well last year. I was not accepted into optometry school right out of college. Once I received the last rejection letter, I immediately tried getting a game plan going to make sure that didn’t happen again. I’ll give a rundown of what that entailed. Hopefully, I can impart some wisdom about how to r