UIW Interview

It's been a couple of weeks since I attended the UIW interview in San Antonio. All in all, the city is fantastic. I have heard so many great things about the city of San Antonio, so I really wanted to enjoy myself while I was down there. I flew down the day of the interview. Brittney dropped me off at Asheville Airport around 5 am and the long day continued. While sitting in the lobby waiting on my plane, I looked across and noticed a man reading an Optometric Practice magazine. This was very odd since I was on the way to my interview. Nevertheless, I didn't think much of it until I boarded the plane and I was sitting right beside this man. Come to find out, he was an Optometrist in a city 15 minutes from mine. Since my mom is in optical, I asked him if he knew her and he did. Odd. After connecting from Atlanta, I met a young couple that was moving from Florida back to their hometown of San Antonio. The entire trip, they told me how San Antonio is so much better than Florida. This made me even more excited. Once I got to San Antonio, I got my rental car, checked into my hotel, and relaxed for 30 minutes. Two days prior to my interview, I started to get sick so by the time I got to the interview, I was feeling like crap. I took a quick shower (although I already had my suit on etc), to try and make myself feel a little better. I then went to my interview (which was right across the street).

Pulling up the school, I was very unimpressed. I'm not sure why, but the school was just very odd. Nothing like the aesthetics of Nova. Nevertheless, I didn't let this bother me and continued inside. Once inside, I met with several other students. We all sat in a conference room and heard the long spill of everything that UIW has to offer. After doing so, they took us back in pairs and broke us up into 1-on-1 interviews. After this, we toured the school and was then free to leave.
(This is the outside of the school)



The tour was, how to put it.....? Lame. There were no students on campus and the tour was given by a faculty member. He was nice, but seemed to brag a lot. He talked about how nice their equipment was and how it was his initiative that brought it all in. I don't want it to seem like this is a knock on the school, but I've been in optical for 10 years and I've seen a lot of this equipment (the same models) for the past 8 years.

After leaving, I dropped one student off at the airport (so they wouldn't have to get a taxi) and dropped another off at his hotel. This was after a woman let her car roll back into the rental car I had on the interstate (no damage luckily). After, I made my way back to the hotel and got out of the suit. I was anxious to watch the UNC game (sweet 16 game), so I made my way out to a bar to watch it. I went down to the Riverwalk that everyone raves about and I must say, this place is GREAT. Awesome area. I found a local bar to watch the game and met some very interesting guys. I must admit, San Antonio had the nicest people that I've ever met. I then left and found a Mexican restaurant to try some "Tex Mex". I could eat this food for breakfast/lunch/dinner. FANTASTIC. I then got back home pretty early (9pm or so) and went to bed. My return flight was the next morning.
(The River Walk)



All in all, the city was fantastic, the school was (in my opinion) below average, and the people were great. If Nova and UIW could switch cities, I'd MUCH rather live in San Antonio than Ft Lauderdale (this coming from a beach bum). I'll get some Pictures up within the week.