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
