Today we have Antonio Chirumbolo, a SUNY Optometry 2013 student with lots of great tips to bring to the table. Here is an icebreaker post from Antonio, but keep an eye out because this guy has lots of wisdom to bring to the table!
Hey guys, here are a few tips that will really help you dominate optometry school and get a grasp on all of your classes, ensuring long term success.
- Review your notes every night from the first day of classes. On the weekends make it a habbit to review over all of the notes you have from day one. This will keep the material fresh in your mind and make it natural knowledge by the time midterms and finals come. It is painful to do this day after day and the truth is that this technique will have you sitting with your eyes glued to your books for a good sixteen hours over the the weekend, but the reward will come when it’s time for exams.
- Most professors tell you not to waste all of your time memorizing things but to actually learn the material. For the most part they are correct. There are many things you really need to learn or else your life as an optometrist will be over at age 50 when we begin to slowly forget everything. However, there are some things you can breeze through instead of spending an entire weekend tryng to grasp the philosophy of object image formation in optics. (See my study tricks compilation coming soon). Simple tricks can not only help you learn the material in a much easier fashion but can help you save precious time.
- Our time is precious. There are simply not enough hours in a day to have a social life and be an optometry student. So what do we do you ask? Cut the social life, but not completely. Go out Friday night, we have all earned it after another painful week. Like I said, go out Friday, not Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. You will need to sacrifice fun for school more than just once so get accustomed to it.
- It’s not a competition. The competition to get into school is gone. Now that you are in school, it’s time to work as a team. Now it’s about achieving success collectively as a class. If you know something.valuable that may help your classmates, by all means share. Chances are someone knows something you don’t and they too will be glad to help you out!
Antonio Chirumbolo
SUNY 2013
Thank you Antonio for the tips! This article is really helpful. I was actually a little disappointed on the “go out Friday, not Friday, Saturday, and Sunday”
(just teasing) but good results need sacrifices! I will really take into consideration your study tips! Thank you again for taking the time to share your study tips with us.
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WAY TO GO GUYS!!!
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that was great. waiting for your other tips.and can you tell me how many hours do you usually study during weekdays. i am a pre-optometry student and really want to know what i am getting into.
thanks
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Yes, I’d like to know how many hours on average per day you study too! Is there a general rule of thumb (like how in undergrad they want us to pull in 3 hours of study time per hour of class..)
Around how many hours of studying do you rank in per week? Was the amount of time different your first and second year?
Thanks.
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Matt Geller Reply:
November 22nd, 2010 at 10:32 am
Hi Dana,
It’s hard to say but here are some numbers off the top of my head. Keep in mind that my schedule is totally different then someone else’s might be.
I would say that I study about 3-4 hours per day, some days none, some days 8 hrs. The weekends I tend to study way more. The amount of studying stayed about the same from 1st-2nd year but 2nd year is more spread out while 1st year the study time was loaded around midterms and finals.
Thanks for commenting!
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