Bethany Camacho's dream is to run her own medical practice, but first, she needs practice.
Camacho and more than 30 other American Career College-Los Angeles optical technician students volunteered in November at the three-day Care Harbor LA health fair. At the event, they gained hands-on experience in dealing with customers, listening to their client's needs and working with them. Camacho, who joined ACC right after high school, said she was really enjoying putting her classroom skills to work.
"I'm usually the shy type so getting to know the patients, checking their eyes, finding their measurements, making sure I know how to do certain things," she said. "It's really nice knowing that I'm helping people."
Why did you choose ACC?
I've always been interested in being an optical technician, or even becoming a doctor. I'm actually planning on becoming one afterwards so I'm going to continue my education. I just graduated from high school and I applied to ACC and they accepted me. I had different options, like four-year schools and private or Cal State universities and I really liked having those options but I wanted to make sure that what I was doing in optometry was actually something that I wanted. I wanted to take baby steps from the bottom up and at this point optometry is something that really interests me.
Do you have a dream job?
I want to become a doctor. I want to just show the world that, 'Hey, girls can do what guys can do,' because there's not that many (female, Hispanic) optometrists.
What do you want people to know about ACC?
ACC is a great program, it's a great school. I know on the TV they tell you 'oh, it's for people who dropped out of high school or are older,' but actually we've had people from high school, straight out of high school -- I'm not the only one -- who started getting into this. And honestly, I think it's a good idea, because they start working more quickly and they start earning money in order to go into a university if that's what they want.
