Pursuing An Optometry: A Career In My Life

“What you seek is seeking you” (Rumi). I feel as if I didn’t choose to become an optometrist so much as the inspiration was seeking me. Two years ago I panicked every time someone asked me what I was doing after graduation. I hated the time commitment that came with medical school. I knew my nieces and nephews would be graduated from high school by the time I got done, and that my grandmother almost surely wouldn 't be with us. I would not sacrifice that much of my life, and absent myself from the lives of my loved ones for so long. My life experiences made it mandatory that my career aspirations allow for balance. This anxiety and stubbornness created the perfect conditions for an epiphany. My inspiration to pursue optometry was seeded from a long overdue visit to an optometrist, rooted in my perseverance as a student,

I avoided getting eye exams and therefore didn’t have much exposure to the profession. Late in my junior year at Grand Valley I was having trouble seeing the board in my lecture halls, so I broke down and made an appointment with Dr.Smith. During our small talk came the typically questions: Where do you go to school? What is your major? What do you plan to do after graduation? The truth is I didn’t know what I wanted to do after graduation. I knew what I didn’t want to do. That I didn’t want to go to medical school, which was my original plan. I told Dr.Smith that I had been thinking about applying to Physician Assistant programs. Turns out Dr.Smith too had debated between Grand Valleys P.A. Program and pursuing Optometry. He gave me his personal reasons for choosing Optometry, and prompted me to look at the prerequisites for the Doctor of Optometry program. I found it to be a wonderful coincidence that after evading an eye exam since middle school, I ended up making an appointment with a doctor who’s story paralleled mine, and was gracious enough to share it with me when I desperately needed