By Katelyn Goodroe
Optometry promises a stable, comfortable future for clinicians and their families. When walking around any campus, it is no surprise that many students come from various walks of life; some even choose to pursue optometric education as a second or third career. While walking away from the workforce and deferring four years of your usual income to take out student loans and submit yourself to long, irregular hours on campus may feel daunting, there is something special about making sacrifices to secure a better future for yourself. In today’s economy, many career fields are exuding a degree of uncertainty as an unpredictable labor market results in dozens of unanswered job applications and obscure paths to career advancement.
Pursuing a licensed clinical profession, one with a growing patient demand, provides a career safety net. A safety net that many nontraditional students, or students who did not enroll in optometry school within a year or two after finishing their undergraduate studies, may not have experienced in previous professions. It can feel disheartening at times for nontraditional students to start from scratch, especially when an administrator or preceptor speaks to them like they have never held any sort of responsibility or maintained a job in the past. When previous experience results in potential clashes between learned behaviors and the methods preferred by those with legitimate authority over students in an academic setting, feelings of exasperation or frustration are expected.
In my experience as a nontraditional student, self-examination offers relief to the confusion associated with the dichotomous experience of taking a step back and returning to higher education after already spending time in the workforce. For me, six years of government work, from small-town school districts to the Department of Defense, instilled certain expectations of how organizations are run. While I have had to shake off those sentiments and step back to open myself up to the culture of professional school, I have found that there are ways for me to still feel connected with my past professional identity.
Previous work experience lends potential for improved communication and organizational skills as well as enhanced executive functioning. At the same time, the practice of optometry requires the development of entirely new skills that are unique to the field. Sometimes professional school feels natural; organizing priorities for a study session is no different than scheduling tasks to be completed during a workday. At other times, perhaps in a laboratory or clinical setting, it may feel as though the time spent in your previous career was a waste as nothing could have prepared you for the subtleties of performing gonioscopy.
Through an evaluation of self, though, a sense of purpose may be found that provides a guiding light to help navigate the path of choosing optometry as a second skill. Consider the career of August Rodin, the founder of modern sculpture. His work was heavily criticized by the art community as his figures highlighted naturalism and the brutish physicality of the physiological form of man, a stark departure from classical works that emphasized the beauty of its figures through technique that created smooth, perfect, god-like reflections of humanity. Rodin’s work exhibited a sort of heaviness that may only be accumulated through experience and the difficulties of life, and, as he refused to let early criticism affect his identity as an artist, his work gained prominence that led to major commissions across Europe.
While there is absolutely nothing wrong with a traditional approach—the first experience viewing Michelangelo’s David in the Accademia Gallery in Florence is apt to take anyone’s breath away—there is also beauty in the wear and tear of life. As Rodin wisely stated, “Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.” One of his most celebrated works, The Thinker, was originally meant to be part of a collection of works inspired by Dante’s Inferno. Because the museum housing these collections was never realized, Rodin’s The Thinker developed an identity of its own and evolved as an icon embodying the burden of creativity.
To my fellow nontraditional students feeling discouraged by disconnects between course material, a peer or a professor, take a moment to reflect upon your own experiences and how they may be used wisely to support your fellow classmates from all walks of life. Evaluate your strengths and how they contribute to your own personal concept of self-worth, then invest in meditating upon potential spaces in your life where growth is necessary for you to become a well-rounded clinician. The practice of humility in addition to celebration of value provides a balanced foundation for you to build upon as you gain clinical experience. In the end, changing your spots takes time, so we non-traditional students may look to Rodin’s patience for success to find inspiration while treading our own paths. Rodin’s brilliance lay in the imperfections of his clay figures; the fingerprints and knots left behind from his handling of the material. Your brilliance lays in the experiences that molded who you are today, and one day the pits and indents of this long, hard road through optometry school will be celebrated as your most valuable qualities.
