Rishi Khattar, NZOSS 2021 president

Welcome to the first column from the New Zealand Optometry Student Society (NZOSS) executive for 2021. For those that don’t know us, we are a student body that acts as a professional platform to bridge the gap between current optometry students, experienced professionals and the eye care community around us. 

After a quiet yet still productive 2020, due to lockdown and Covid-19, we are looking to further grow our society this year by organising different social and academic events to bring New Zealand BOptom students together to form a close-knit community. 

Although the semester has not commenced yet, the NZOSS executive committee has been busy organising social events such as Orientation Day, the optometry camp and our annual friendly BBQ, where we welcome part-two students into our society and bring them together as a cohort. Our aim is to provide an environment for students and their peers to build rapport so they can better support each other. We are also beginning to organise many of our popular annual social events for later in the year, including the pub quiz, pub crawl, bowling night and the premier event of the year, the much-anticipated EyeBall, to name just a few.

On the more educational side, there will be several seminars will begin in the first month of the academic year. For each seminar, we welcome a guest speaker or speakers who will provide valuable information about the real world of optometry and share their experiences of the industry.

NZOSS places a large emphasis on student support and mental wellbeing. To ensure our new students are adapting well into their chosen degree, they will be placed into groups with older student mentors who have experienced the same transitional worries. The mentors will be checking up on their mentees regularly to provide guidance throughout the year. As we all know, a bachelor of optometry and vision science is a difficult but rewarding degree. Our student executive will be working hard to support the students through 2021 and ensure the best outcome for all.

If you have any ideas or questions, or you would like to support NZOSS in our future endeavours, please contact us at nzoss.uoa@gmail.com

We cannot wait for the year to begin and we hope it is a great one for all.