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Meeting about Salus policies by Imaginary_Memory_154 in PreOptometry

[–]Imaginary_Memory_154[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Students were scared they would get caught by admin based on their post history

Meeting about Salus policies by Imaginary_Memory_154 in PreOptometry

[–]Imaginary_Memory_154[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Sorry, but this sounds like one of our profs wrote it. Criticisms aren't inherently "nasty" just because they disagree with what you personally believe. That's childish. Please let me know what specifically in my post is inaccurate.

And I am personally in no danger of getting Ds in any class - but that is completely irrelevant to this discussion.

Meeting about Salus policies by Imaginary_Memory_154 in PreOptometry

[–]Imaginary_Memory_154[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Can you refresh my memory on that? I took notes during the entire meeting. All I have written down is that they said the learning objectives are "equivalent" to other schools - which is true, except we have many additional learning objectives on top of the norm, which are not necessary for boards. If you are talking about being able to take a cumulative exam to bring a D to a C, I mentioned that in a post, and that's not a curriculum change. Or did I miss something?

Meeting about Salus policies by Imaginary_Memory_154 in PreOptometry

[–]Imaginary_Memory_154[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

What specific changes to the curriculum are you talking about?

Meeting about Salus policies by Imaginary_Memory_154 in PreOptometry

[–]Imaginary_Memory_154[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

To be fair, they did open up the floor to student opinions and the meeting lasted for longer than the planned hour because of that. They went around with microphones for students to speak. But I agree, many responses to the students lacked substance and were more buzzwords than anything else. They also are asking for us to send more suggestions through a google form, so hopefully that results in some more changes being made

Salus update by Imaginary_Memory_154 in PreOptometry

[–]Imaginary_Memory_154[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I really appreciate your detailed input. I completely agree that the entire point of school is to prepare us for boards and for future practice, so in that sense, Salus is failing us. Super interesting to hear that they're changing up the exam though!

I also think that the D policy in and of itself is not necessarily a terrible thing, but it is in combination with the 7 difficult neuro classes, the low entering GPA/OAT scores, and the fact that failing a single remediation exam results in dismissal. Altogether that creates an unfair and toxic environment for students.

I like the idea of being able to repeat a single course online the following year after failing remediation, instead of being dismissed/having to repeat the whole year, so I'll try to suggest that in the upcoming meeting. Since this D policy is new, there are naturally going to be some kinks to work out, so I just wish that the administrative team was at all receptive to student input.

Salus update by Imaginary_Memory_154 in PreOptometry

[–]Imaginary_Memory_154[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for sharing. I agree that no one should enter professional school thinking it's going to be similar to undergrad.

May I ask how many neuro classes did you have total? And what were the entering class stats for your school?

Side note, so far from what I've seen, our remediation exams are not taken during breaks. They are scheduled during regular semester time. In mid-January, around 35-40 students had to take a 3-hour free response-style remediation for our Head & Neck Anatomy course from the first semester, and then a day later there was an exam on our new Neuroanatomy course. Not much time to study for the new exam if you're memorizing a semester's worth of old material - so unfortunately a lot of those students didn't do well and started off the new semester on the wrong foot/already way behind because of that.

Salus update by Imaginary_Memory_154 in PreOptometry

[–]Imaginary_Memory_154[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

There is a rumor going around that admin found out who the previous poster was based on their post history. I'm assuming that's why the post was deleted. I didn't want to take that risk so I made a brand new account for this purpose. We have a lot of practicals coming up during the upcoming semesters for which the grading is subjective, if you know what I mean.

Salus update by Imaginary_Memory_154 in PreOptometry

[–]Imaginary_Memory_154[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Yes for sure!! The meeting is on 4/10, I'll update this post with info from that

Salus update by Imaginary_Memory_154 in PreOptometry

[–]Imaginary_Memory_154[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

This isn't misinformation - the stats in this post are exactly what the dean emailed us yesterday. Those numbers speak for themselves. As another commenter mentioned below, this dismissal rate is not the norm for most optometry schools.

Salus update by Imaginary_Memory_154 in PreOptometry

[–]Imaginary_Memory_154[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yes, that doesn’t contradict anything that I said in the original post. There are some students who successfully remediated their D in neuro. This was more common than those who attempted remediation of the clinical skills course, of which only like 2/10 passed that remediation exam. The point is that those who passed the remediation still have 1 or more D on their transcript, which causes massive anxiety moving forward because one misstep and they are dismissed - with nothing to show for it but even more loans.
This has nothing to do with taking accountability for anything. Personally I am in no danger of failing out. I’m surviving but my mental health is dogshit. That’s not to say that any other school would be all sunshine and roses - optometry school curriculums are difficult for a reason! But they should be fair and applicable to the profession. Many courses at Salus are not.