Jose's optometry experience
As a first-generation college student from south Texas, Jose loves both the family-like atmosphere of Ohio State Optometry and the beauty of a large campus environment. He appreciates that Ohio State ignites his passion for optometry and celebrates his background.
Jose - Ohio State Optometry Student
Video Transcript
-
Jose: Being far from home is never easy, but it is when you have a family here at OSU, and I really do feel like I have a family with my professors, with our faculty and staff, with my classmates, the upperclassmen.
It's been it's been very welcoming, and I really do love it here. My brother and I are first generation students. I'm the first person in my family to pursue anything like this.
When my Uber was driving down--I don't know what street it is, but it's right next to the stadium--and my jaw just dropped. Being from South Texas, like I love football; I played football all throughout high school, I had a bunch of college football offers, but I just wanted to focus on school.
And so sitting there, just kind of in awe about what the stadium kind of looked like in person, about how big it was, how everything was Scarlet gray, and that was the first thing I noticed.
But once I kind of started walking down to the optometry school, and saw, you know, the giant Snelling chart on the side of the building I was kind of just mesmerized by there, and I really started to fall in love with this place. Coming to I-DOC was awesome.
It was one of my first times going to school out of state, so I really kind of learned a lot about myself and what I wanted to do with my future.
I fell in love with the campus, fell in love with the people that were here, and learned a lot about what Optometry really had to offer. And that kind of really instilled that flame in me, and kind of being inspired to pursue this career in Optometry, and so it really kind of helped me out, kind of took over my passion for Optometry.
And here at Ohio State this past semester we actually just had a Hispanic Day. We celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month.
I was very fortunate to kind of give my piece and my story on how I was raised, and help promote just kind of advocacy for the improvement of the Hispanic population in the profession.