Technical Standards for Optometry Students

Essential Abilities and Characteristics Required for Completion of the OD Degree

Essential abilities and characteristics required for completion of the OD degree consist of certain minimum physical and cognitive abilities and sufficient mental and emotional stability to assure that candidates for admission, promotion, and graduation are able to complete the entire course of study and participate fully in all aspects of optometric training.

Berkeley Optometry intends for its graduates to become competent and compassionate optometrists who are capable of meeting all requirements for optometric licensure and entering residency training (post-graduate optometric education) if desired. The avowed intention of an individual student to practice only a narrow part of clinical optometry, or to pursue a non-clinical career, does not alter the requirement that all optometry students take and achieve competence in the full curriculum required by the faculty.

Berkeley Optometry has an ethical responsibility for the safety of the patients with whom students and graduates will come into contact. Although students learn and work under the supervision of the faculty, students interact directly with patients throughout their optometry school education. Patient safety and well-being are therefore major factors in establishing requirements involving the physical, cognitive, and emotional abilities of candidates for admission, promotion, and graduation.

Technical standards are applied in several broad catagories, including behavioral and social attributes; communication; intellectual-conceptual, integrative, and quantitative abilities; motor function; and observation. These abilities and characteristics, in conjunction with academic standards established by the faculty, are requirements for admission, promotion, and graduation in optometry.

The complete Optometry Student Technical Standards is available as a viewable, downloadable, and printable file:

 Download Technical Standards for Optometry Students.