Is there a lot of trigonometry in optometry school curriculum?!
Question: What undergrad subjects is the curriculum most like? What do you suggest taking to prepare?
Answers: What undergrad subjects is the curriculum most like? What do you suggest taking to prepare?
Well i studied in UK, not alot of trigonometry is involved, having good knowledge of Biology, Maths and Physics is a major plus, probable alot of it is based around Physics and Biology (Anatomy etc), Optometry includes alot of structure/function, its a very clinical subject and alot of the theory you learn you dont use in general day to day practice.
The problem, or one of the problems most of us have in school, is knowing that what we are studying is worth anything. And perhaps we could study stuff that would make it so later we'd be prepared for medical school or optometry school or law school. But in secondary schools, there's so much peer pressure that we don't really study for ourselves, we study just enough to get through.
An education is something that gives you a better, generalized view of the world overall. And there are courses that you'll find helpful later on in your chosen professional school. But there are other courses that may not be as 'fun' but would be of far greater benefit to you no matter what you end up doing. For instance the trig, or geometry, or biology or physiology or anatomy are tools. And the better you understand and can use those tools, the easier it will be to understand or grasp the topics in optometry school or medical school or residency.
English. You have to be able to communicate well in any of the professional degree programs. So learning English well, reading a LOT, knowing more of literature and life and philosophy, history, economics, business, accounting, sociology, geology, astronomy, a different language or two so you have a grasp on how other people in other parts of the world think, how they speak, how they live, how they see 'us', will make you a better physician, optometrist, attorney, etc.
The idea is to learn these things not just to pass the test at the end, but to make it part of your overall understanding of the world. Getting poor grades when spending all those hours in school because you HAVE to anyway, is sort of... well, wasteful. Not to me, to YOU.
I've found that most everything comes up sooner or later again. In optometry school you focus on lenses, refraction, some eye disease, some business, how to make glasses, how to grind lenses, how to run a clinic, what the basic anatomy and physiology of the eye is about, how to do an eye exam, how to refract, how to fit lenses, the complications of doing it wrong as well as right, what to look for when someone doesn't see well, how different diseases can affect one's ability to see or not see.
In medical school, one learns a completely different type of knowledge. After medical school one does an internship, which for most is one of the 'best' years of training ever, as one learns to put it together.. one 'becomes' a doctor somewhere in the middle of that year, usually towards the latter third. One day it clicks. One day there's no one to ask, and you make a decision that will make that person live or he won't. After that, things are different. After that you study differently, you learn differently, you remember differently.
With an eye residency, you begin again. The residency in ophthalmology is 3 years and after the first you wonder if 3 years is enough to learn it all. You know it isn't. If you stay in for another year, or are lucky or smart enough or right enough to get a fellowship, you train for another year or two in a subspecialty such as Cornea, or Glaucoma, or Retina, or Pediatric ophthalmology...And wonder then if that's enough time to learn all there is in THAT subspecialty.
It never stops. Even when done you are again at the beginning of a practice or a teaching position or academic position or...
Is there a lot of trigonometry? If you like to learn, trig is the least of the problems, and a slightly, just slightly challenging one. Learn it for you.