About SCCO and How It Will Change You
A rewarding health care career begins with a quality education. Just ask any of the thousands of SCCO alumni, whose hard work, dedication and commitment have put them at the top of the optometric profession.
When you choose our Doctor of Optometry degree, you’re getting a program that’s professionally and nationally accredited by the Accreditation Council on Optometric Education of the American Optometric Association (AOA).
Completing the SCCO curriculum will qualify you to apply for licensure in all 50 United States.
Interprofessional Education
As a future optometrist, you’ll become an integral part of patients’ primary health care team, along with internists, specialists and other medical professionals. Studying at SCCO more than prepares you for this future.
This aspect of your training is known as ‘interprofessional education.’ MBKU is the first health care university in Southern California to bring three primary care disciplines together, learning and working together as a team to provide collaborative, effective patient care.
See Patients Your Second Year
As an SCCO second-year student, you'll begin examining patients in a supervised clinical environment. Few other institutions offer the opportunity to develop your clinical and patient-management skills like this, in a collaborative, interprofessional educational setting.
You can further enhance your optometric skills through our Outreach Clinical Program, a unique opportunity for fourth-year students. As a student intern, you’ll work side-by-side with other health care professionals, doing four, 10-12-week rotations, one in the Ketchum Health Network, and three in clinically diverse settings of your choice, such as VA medical centers, HMOs, military bases and others–both in the US and overseas.
SCCO Mission, Goals, and Objectives
Mission
To inspire and educate future doctors of optometry to provide collaborative, evidence-based, ethical, and equitable health care that reflects the evolving practice of optometry, and to be leaders in the community and profession.
Values
As the first optometry school in California, the Southern California College of Optometry (SCCO) has a proud history of serving the optometric profession and the public. The college educates and guides future doctors of optometry to be leaders in healthcare, advances the profession, and serves our communities, locally, nationally, and internationally. We embody the values of the university in our commitment to reimagine the future of healthcare education, while promoting accountability through professionalism, ethical standards, and societal responsibility. We embrace an inclusive and compassionate culture for all members. We practice excellence in the care we give to patients and the high quality, evidence-based education we impart to students. Innovation is championed by the contributions we make to the profession. Above all, we respect and value the skills and diversity of people and their contributions to our college.
Goals
Educational Goal
Provide an innovative and comprehensive curriculum that prepares students to practice full scope optometry, to value professionalism and ethics, and to promote a supportive learning environment.
Teaching Goal
Deliver a contemporary, evolving, and comprehensive didactic and clinical education by faculty who are knowledgable, highly qualified, effective, and passionate.
Service and Outreach Goal
Instill a devotion of providing health care for the community, to contribute to the optometric profession.
Scholarship Goal
Provide and sustain a high-quality research environment that enables the expertise and aspiration of faculty and students to advance the college and contribute to the profession.
SCCO Community Goal
To inspire and nurture an inclusive, supportive, and collaborative campus environment supportive of growth and respectful of diversity in perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences. The SCCO Community includes people who work, learn, and engage with services at SCCO.