[JayKay335i]

Originally Posted by wwjbd24

but hey, get that money!

since you're in optometry school, how bad is it if i am a -5.0 in each eye (wear contacts 80% of the time) but my glasses are -4.5?

Bah.

They should be different to take in effect vertex distance of the lens sitting further in front of your eye. Myopia means your eye is too long or your lens is to strong thus the image converges in front of your retina. The negative lens diverges light so that the image will move further back, on to your retina.

Contact lenses and glasses will be different to account for this distance. Also, your doctor does whats called subjective refraction which is to see where you feel most comfortable and balanced and prescribes lenses based on that versus just optical calculations.

[JayKay335i]

Originally Posted by dark335i

why spend so much? people keep telling me it won't make a big difference in the long run. i'm going to guess it's a private university? why didn't you go to a public university?

I got a private university but the public universities cost just as much in the long run once the bill is tallied up between equipment, lab fees, housing, etc. Its not to bad here in terms of price. One of my professors who graduated from a UC school a few years ago said even though it was public, it wound up costing him more money to attend there than it does for us to attend our school. He was even a CA resident.

The whole key to education and deciding where you're going to go and how much you want to spend should come down to what job you want at the end. If you're going for a liberal arts degree and want a job that only makes you $30-50k a year in the end, than dropping $50k a year on a private university is just stupid IMHO. The higher the salary you're banking on the more you can afford to spend on education.

When considering graduate school that should be a big part of the equation. If the extra money that getting a post-secondary degree will net you will in the long run makes you a shit ton more than you currently make, only then is it worth it to pay for that degree.

Overall, the possible salary and what I plan on doing after graduation makes $250k overall on education more than worth it.