Optometry
I Chose Salus
Hello! My name is Maddy Edwards, and I am a first-year student at Salus University in the Doctor of Optometry Accelerated Scholars program. I am from State College, PA, and I graduated from Penn State University in May of 2023 with a Bachelor of Science in Biology and minors in Women’s Studies and Biochemistry.
Every day tends to be a little different in this program, but each one is always full of lectures, studying, patient care, and lots of time with my wonderful classmates.
I usually wake up around 7 a.m. and get ready for the day. If we have an exam that morning, I will often wake up a bit earlier and review my study guides before the exam. We tend to have lectures from 8 a.m. until about 5 p.m., but not all of the lectures are in-person or synchronous. For example, we may have an asynchronous lecture from 8-10 a.m., in-person lectures from 10 a.m. -3 p.m., and then another asynchronous lecture from 3-5 p.m. We are not required to watch the asynchronous lectures at the time they are scheduled, so if you would rather go to the gym or take a nap during the time, you can watch it later. It’s nice to have a bit of flexibility within your schedule!
Other than lectures, another big part of our day is patient care. This past Fall quarter, our class went to the Eye Institute for patient care one to two afternoons a week for shadowing, but in the Spring, we will be starting as the primary doctors three to four afternoons a week. This means we will have classes in the morning from 8 a.m. - noon and then head over to the clinic from 1-5 p.m.! Patient care is my favorite part of this program so far, so I am super excited to be more involved this coming Spring.
After class and clinic, I head back to my apartment and make some dinner around 5:30 or 6 p.m. I then work on making study guides or studying for upcoming exams until about 9:30 p.m. I take the rest of the night for myself and do some things that I enjoy: watching TV, FaceTiming with my family, baking, or just relaxing. I go to bed around 10:30 or 11 pm before doing it all over again the next day!
On the weekends, I try to catch up on lectures and studying while also finding some extra time for myself. I like to go to the gym as often as I can, and I really enjoy participating in student organizations at Salus. I am a Salus Student Ambassador, Vice President of the Pennsylvania Optometric Student Association (POSA), and a recent inductee of the Gold Key Optometric Honor Society. I like that Salus has so many great opportunities to get involved!
This program tends to be very busy, but I’ve already learned so much and met some of the most amazing people. I am super excited to see what the next two years of this program will hold!
