#iuso

Hello hello, welcome and thank you! :D

First of all, congratulations on getting accepted to both SCO and IUSO!! Unfortunately, I am not 100% aware of how the American optometry schools work since I am attending optometry school in Canada.

*Disclaimer* My objections are to the faculty, leaders, and admin of IUSO that deal in depravity and with nobody else. Faithful students, IUSO, optometry, kind admin and professors I hope I do not offend. My intentions are good. The following knowledge and opinion was honed in the year following my exit from IUSO and especially while sleeping in the bouncing upper bunk of a TMC Peterbilt truck while being alone, tired, sick, and unsure of my future.

Well it’s been a week or two and Mister Bonnanno still hasn’t resolved my listserv message just like he hasn’t resolved Brian Roger’s hate speech article.  Mister Bonnanno could have resolved the listserv message in one or two ways. He could have addressed the issues I respectfully presented or he could have attempted to silence my right to free speech.  He chose the latter. 

After my message was distributed, Mister Bonnanno chose to restrict my listserv privileges, while to my knowledge, Brian’s privileges remain intact. Obvious to me, Mister Bonnanno would prefer misogynistic opinions to fly across the IUSO cyberspace rather than an EX student’s good intentioned distribution of honest INFORMATION. In my opinion, it is because this information portrays himself, optometry, and especially IUSO in a negative light. However, the funny thing about a listserv is that it is simply a list of emails. Simple to extract and copy. I guess that Mister Bonnanno, or whoever, doesn’t think much of an EX optometry student’s ability to get around a listserv ban.

A separate listserv email allowed to pervade student inboxes was the original ray of sunshine mass email that applauded the collection of generously donated funds for student instruction and for facility upgrades. My problem with this message is its obvious neglect of context. Why are third party sources necessary for funding “student instruction”? I would say because student tuition has been wasted on the proposal and preparation for inhumane animal research and has been wasted on raises for those who would support it. Secondly, does nobody else have an idea why IUSO would be funding a flurry of renovations? Could it have anything to do with the competition brought on by the steadily increasing number of tuition mills, er I mean optometry schools? As it was stated, IUSO does exist because of trusting students, that much is very true.

I don’t hate optometry, contrary to the opinion of the student that dubbed me “mister optometry hater” The people I’m ashamed of are the administrators, teachers, and head honchos that knowingly exploit trusting young people. FYI, optometry isn’t the only place where teachers and administrators hold the funds and futures of young people in its hand. Recently, IU students “occupied” a recent IU trustees demanding democratic rights. And so it goes…

This final listserv message is for only one type of person. The person that sees optometry for what it really is (massive debt, subpar earning potential, and highly monotonous) and who longs for an escape. There is an escape. I left and worked in the real world. I came back to school and now I’m back in the real world and loving it. It is scary but it is easier and more lucrative than you most likely thought. Please talk to me and I would love to show you. This message is not for the administration and leaders that pilfer money from bright eyed students and nor is it for the people who love optometry and who I truly will believe will make an immense difference in the world. 

Speaking of money, IUSO has proven to me that they only care about money and not student wellbeing. Admin, students, and faculty have invested too much to wake up to truth or simply refuse because it is too profitable. To use myself as an example, I failed a proficiency last semester by two points out of an approximately 75 point total while struggling through the fatigue of a terrible flu. I’ve since found that my memorization and application of what is essentially a laundry list was inhibited not by a lack of practice or knowledge but by a lack of propranol. My ability to hold my hands steady was out of my control. After trying propranol this semester, I blazed my second proficiency. No offense, but driving a manual 18 wheeler is much more difficult than the slit lamp exam will ever be and trucking holds some of the most wisdom i've ever found.

When I approached the professor of this class, Mister Jeff Perotti, I was told that there wasn’t much he could do about a student’s lack of “proficiency.” After a day of searching I found that to be nothing short of a lie. Three students had appealed a proficiency failure to an academic review committee the year before  and were allowed to practice over the summer and retake the proficiency. I had to find out about my right to appeal and the utility of propranol from sources outside the person I thought had my best interest in mind.

When I went to talk to the person in charge of administrative matters, Mrs. Cindy Vance, I was also not informed of my right to appeal. Instead, she focused on how helpful this repeat of a course would be for me. This was too much, so I left IUSO. I came back to school wiser, but weary from trucking. IUSO cared so much about my education that they allowed me to retake the proficiency class I failed as well as three classes I had passed in what I assume was some reverse grandfathering rule. With this rule I was considered in the same class as the class that followed mine. Therefore, under their rules, I had to even retake classes I had passed. Of course, that resorted in more credit hour coin falling in IUSO coffers. All told and in my personal opinion, IUSO stole in excess of 40,000 dollars from me, my future family, my parents, my ancesters who withstood racism in a new country, and all those who are or who will ever be in need of aid.

Sadly, what I found after toning my ego down, I was not the only one to arbitrarily be wrung dry of the money that my parents and I earned. I know of one student who was deathly ill but was not allowed to take a SABS test on a different date. I know of another student in Mister Perotti’s class that had Mister Perotti (a much harder grader) as a grader for three of her three proficiencies. She obviously failed and IUSO pocketed a little more cash. I’ve known students who were not allowed to take finals and were allowed to fail out in this manner. No wonder cheating is so rampant at IUSO. Cheating incidents that have been found, hushed, and (to my knowledge) remain unpunished (as far as expulsion) are included, but so are the self-reports of cheating by many students. ASCO would be pleased! Check online for more IUSO stories like these. 

*Personal Opinion* Get it through your head, IUSO and most of those who have any control over your future, would rather pocket some quick cash even if it means leaving you destitute and on the streets. I know of at least one student who has failed out just this year and now will do who knows what with his biology degree and massive debt. Nobody seems to care though until it happens to them.

Because student honesty about an institution is rewarded with silencing, I will pass my message on to new ears. My bitterness has long subsided, I simply don’t want new students to make the same mistakes that myself and others have. Therefore, I think ASCO would love to know how things are proceeding at their Midwest school. IUSO alumni would also be very interested in knowing what kind of reputation that their alma mater is acquiring. Animal and women’s rights groups would be very interested by the things occurring in Bloomington. Local press, like the one that originally wrote an article concerning IUSO’s proposed animal abuse, might also unearth some things of interest. Finally, and most importantly, the honest appraisal of IUSO and a completely faithful rendering of events past will be passed on to college students considering IUSO and optometry on such forums as SDN and ODWire.

Speaking of forums, for those of you who think I am an uninformed lunatic, I’ve researched optometry for several years before I ever matriculated at the school. I honestly loved the idea of optometry. I would be helping people, earn a comfortable living, and I loved that optometry was such a marginalized, underdog profession. I soon lost that optimism and found why optometry was so low on the totem. I actually stopped reading the forums and reading what leaders in the field had to say during my stay at IUSO. I effectively was burying my head further and trusting when I shouldn’t have. Now I’m back with opened eyes and they will stay open. 

In conclusion, I don’t do this for me or for anyone other than the current IUSO students I care about and those to come. I want it known that I said the things I said when I still had something IUSO could take from me. I’m free now from that threat and I look forward to seeing how future contacts react to this information. However, I would ask that those close to me that remain in IUSO should not be treated differently because I know of nobody inside the school who shares my opinions. Therefore, hearing that my message would affect poorly the way those closest to me are treated, shows me something of the implied personal character of such individuals.

Your friend

MPS