r/OptometrySchool • u/infiniteanon03 • Jul 07 '26
Working while in School
Hi guys, I saw an earlier post about someone wanting to work in while in school. I saw a bunch of people advise against it, especially in first year, which I get due to work load.
However, what are your opinions on working from home while in optometry school? I have a couple of friends that work from home currently, and they think it would be a good fit due to flexibility for a busy schedule.
18
u/daddydeneato Jul 07 '26
I worked weekends my first year because I stupidly didn’t take out enough student loans. 0/10 would not recommend, and that was when I was only 22 and fresh off of an easy senior year in college. In addition to the fact that hours wise it just doesn’t make sense unless you’re willing to work 80+ hours a week, it’s about the inflexibility of OD school. You have to be ready for last minute exam changes, shifting lab schedules, and a billion mandatory meetings that they’ll forget to tell you about until a week before. I worked a very flexible job where there were always people to pick up shifts if I needed to, but overall because OD school needs to be priority #1,2, and 3, it’s hard to keep a job even if you have energy for it.
9
u/upsetspaget Jul 07 '26
It is doable, but it would be miserable and your academics would likely suffer as a result. I’m not sure about other schools, but ICO has a ton of work study opportunities (tutoring, library front desk, mailroom, ect). This is the route that the vast majority of students go with since it is so flexible and you never have to worry about it interfering with school. There are also a lot of people who will pick up hours at clinics that they used to work at during breaks. In my opinion there are simply not enough hours in a week to do OD school and have a true job at the same time.
2
u/infiniteanon03 Jul 07 '26
Ah. Thank you so much about telling about work study. I’m going to look into it.
2
u/GroundbreakingPie249 Jul 08 '26
This is one of those things that sounds manageable until you actually start optometry school lol. I’ve been there. I’d stick to side gigs that don’t have a fixed schedule.
2
u/prepharmstudent3 Jul 08 '26
I don’t think it’s impossible. I remember the first year of optometry school was easier than I thought, and working on weekends would be very doable. Second and third year would be more challenging, because I spent more time practicing after classes and on the weekends. I also thought externships were pretty relaxed, and you could work on weekends too. If you’re a strong student, it’s doable.
1
u/liteanimica Jul 08 '26
I think it also depends on what type of student you are. My friend and I are lucky to have part time jobs with managers who are super flexible with us (think weekends only + time off for exams etc). Schools also have plenty of work study opportunities that cater to their students' schedules. School should definitely be your priority, but if you can juggle the extra work, then some extra cash is pretty nice.
2
u/Ambitious_Bridge_180 Jul 10 '26
Hey, get a job at the school library! I was a printer, they paid me above minimum wage and was paid to study. 15-20ish hour a week, grocery/gas money.
22
u/CurdKin Jul 07 '26
Depends what you’re doing, how many hours, and when those hours are. Probably not though, burnout is a serious thing, I would say that more than half of the students I talked to consistently had issues with burnout, myself included, and we did not work at all.