So I went down to FL this past Friday for an interview, NOVA was A LOT nicer than I thought it would be
first of all, how can ANYONE not like sunny Florida ?? haha, that's just my bias
Second, the overall environment of the University is really nice, although they are private school, it seems like they have all the new gadgets and spend their money in the right place. The interview itself was really relaxed, I was interviewed by 2 faculties both of them were in private biz before they became teachers, most of the questions were pretty general: tell me about yourself, why do you choose optometry, why NOVA...etc, the basics.
Third, the financial session, it was really a thorough session led by Fran, the person that is in charge of EVERYTHING basically, she explained all the details and kept emphasize the importance of money management, which is good. Too bad there are NO scholarships available, I was told that since the school is relatively new (only 20 yrs compare to some of the longer established programs, NOVA is actually the newest in US), there are no grant money/scholarship donated by the Alumni, so no internal $$ available, of course if you can find a outside source that would be nice.
Fourth, the COMPREHENSIVE college of optometry tour, Fran basically took us EVERYWHERE, showed us what the first year, second year, third year would do, and of course the 4th yrs are outside doing externships. It really gave me a very clear image of what the 4 yrs might be (don't know exactly until I actually begin, but I think as close as it can be). NOVA has a Chinese program in Tianjing, which is really cool for me because I speak Mandarin and I've always wanted to go there and visit. They also have the famous Bascom Palmer site, which is a great place to see all the weird pathology
We've also get chances to talk to so many opt students in diff stages of the program, and they offered very sincere answers to our questions. The interesting thing is that all of the health care division students are color coded, so opt are green scrubs, medical students are blue scrubs, and allied health ppl have diff colors too
The only weird thing is that the teacher take attendance (by swiping your ID, and now they are implementing new devices that scan your fingerprint
) every class, I mean c'mon, this is a graduate program, if ppl want to waste their money and not attend class, that is their choice, we are all adults here, why treat us like little kids and take attendance?
The cost of living there, if you find a roommate, the rent is usually very reasonable, and the location is usually close to the campus, unless you want to get a place far away from school bc you don't want to think about school at night
, and the area is so nice, not that you have the time to go to beach everyday, but still the view is amazing.....
It was nice meeting you Flower85
I hope you had a good trip
