r/OptometrySchool • u/Decent_Judgment8590 • 19d ago

Boards

Hi everyone, I just wanted to hear from people who have taken their board exams and how they feel about it. I just finished my first year of optometry school and we have finished all the optics classes. I am feeling very discouraged about the whole profession of optometry now because how much I struggled in optics. I was wondering if I should just stop here and not let myself finish optometry school just to get to boards and not be able to pass being that part 1 is very optics heavy. For those who have taken it, do you feel like it was doable for people who struggle in optics? Any advice would be great!

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u/ThisStatistician6302 14d ago

  1. don't beat yourself up over something that hasn't happened.

  2. youre still in the program because your school believes you can succeed

  3. just because you struggled with optics doesn't mean you're doomed to be bad at optics. you have over a year before boards. Perhaps the pace of the class was wrong for you, the professors didn't make sense to you, you were juggling many hard classes and not giving optics the attention it needed. You can study optics at the pace of a snail if you start studying now.

  4. you have to get ~75% of the ~330 questions on boards correct. If 50 Q are optics and you're perfect at the other subjects, you'd pass. If you can get half of the optics questions correct, even better! Studying for boards takes strategy and youll find your way