Optics and Optometry
What is the objective of the course? What is it?
What does it train you for?
What does it train you for?
This course of study in Optics and Optometry is a three-year degree programme, for a total of 180 ECTS. This professionally oriented course of study in Optics and Optometry is a highly professional training course for opticians and optometrists. It is aimed both at young people wanting to enter the optometrist profession and professionals already working in the field and to study the knowledge on which their professionalism is based in greater depth and then access higher university education. Today, the field of optics and optometry is full of technological challenges in both industrial applications, as well as in the improvement of eyesight and, therefore, of human health. For this reason, this course of study also intends to train highly qualified professionals suitable for employment in industry and research thanks to skills acquired in interdisciplinary application areas such as lenses for use in astrophysics, the use of instrumentation involving microscopy and molecular spectroscopy in biophysics and biomedicine and knowledge of modern biomaterials for optics and innovative 3D printing techniques.
What do you learn?
This course of professionally-oriented studies in Optics and Optometry provides a single path whose educational activities are divided into lectures, exercises and laboratories, theoretical and practical training and internships. Year I: students acquire adequate basic knowledge of physics, chemistry, mathematics and computer science, as well as aspects more closely related to optician training, knowledge of geometric optics and anatomy. Year II: students study advanced basic physics including Modern Physics and, as regards aspects more closely related to optician training, acquire biochemistry, physiology, ocular pathology and hygiene knowledge. Year III: students acquire skills related to the study of the structure of matter, materials and biomaterials for optics, optical instrumentation for astronomy and molecular biophysics. The three years of the course include 50 ECTS of Curricular Theoretical-Practical Internships in Ophthalmic Lenses, Optometry and Contactology. These internships are held in companies in agreement with the university, by sector professionals who transfer: theoretical and practical knowledge in specific technical subjects in optics and optometry fields together with operational and laboratory skills with particular regard to the use of the most modern instrumentation and new materials used in optics, optometry and contactology.
What can you do with it?
Graduates in Optics and Optometry have the skills required to work in both the private optics and optometry field and the public sector, both academic and industrial. Optics and Optometry graduates use optometric techniques to examine visual deficiencies and manufacture, repair and sell glasses and protective lenses or corrective visual impairments due to refraction directly to the public on medical prescription, use optometric instruments and characterise lens properties and develop new optical materials, manage the most complex optical and optometric equipment on the market skilfully, provide specialised technical / scientific support in the field of academic scientific research and the optical industry. In the industrial sector their competences can be employed in large optical firms and small-medium sized companies dealing with technical articles and instruments for the optical and vision sector. In the commercial sector, skills are in the areas of product development assistance at customers’ premises, after-sales service (information and training courses at customers’ premises), application and development of optical products and instruments, process control and quality control in production. In the private professional sector their skills relate to entrepreneurship, freelancing and technical professionalism in optical companies making ophthalmic lenses and contact lenses. In the public sector their skills qualify them to work as professional technicians or technologists in public research institutions, universities or research laboratories as managers of the optical instrument process and quality control process, for example.