Application Essays Sought for AOA Third-year optometry students are encouraged to submit an essay for each of the two scholarships administered through Optometry Cares, the AOA Foundation: the InfantSEE Scholarship Grant, which is sponsored by Vision West, Inc., and the Dr. Seymour Galina Grant.
The InfantSEE Scholarship Grant will have two victors; the student with the winning essay will be awarded $5,000, while the runner-up will receive $2,500. The winner of the Dr. Seymour Galina Grant will receive an award of $2,500.
An applicant for the InfantSEE Scholarship Grant must submit an essay. This paper needs to address each of the following topics:
What have you done as a student to prepare yourself to become an active participant as an InfantSEE provider?
How have your clinical experiences directly contributed to your development as a future participant in the InfantSEE program and how you will translate these experiences into clinical practice as an InfantSEE provider?
What do you see as the major challenges to providing optometric care to infants and how would you overcome these challenges?
Describe how you would personally promote the InfantSEE program and what you envision the most effective method of marketing the importance of infant vision as an entry point into a lifetime of eye care at a state and national level.
An applicant for the Dr. Seymour Galina Grant must submit a paper on the following topic:
Qualities I have developed through my financial planning/work experience during and/or before optometry school, that I believe will be most useful to me in a professional optometric practice.
Interested applicants must check with their school’s student affairs office for the deadline to submit materials. From the applications received, each school and college will select one candidate for the InfantSEE Scholarship Grant and one candidate for the Dr. Seymour Galina Grant. Institutions will forward the individuals’ names and essays to Optometry Cares by November 11, 2014. The winners for the scholarships will be announced in January 2015.
For scholarship application documents and more information about each scholarship’s criteria, visit www.aoafoundation.org.