Alvin Pleitez OTD ’25

What brought you to occupational therapy?
USC brought me to occupational therapy, it was my junior year of high school and I was in math when students from Chan introduced OT by giving a PowerPoint presentation. Throughout the whole presentation, I was hooked and couldn’t keep my eyes away. Once I got home I realized that occupational therapy was the profession I wanted to be a part of.

What are some of the occupations you engage in?
Some occupations that I engage in are playing the trombone and guitar as well as going to the gym and swimming.

Tell us about your favorite memory from the program so far?
My favorite memory so far is meeting the BA-OTD 2025 class in person for the first time. Everyone was engaging and very outgoing so it felt like a close-knit group right from the start.

If you could travel anywhere, where would it be?
I would travel to Iceland to scuba dive in Silfra, which is the only place where one can swim between two tectonic plates.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
The best piece of advice I’ve ever been given is to “embrace who I am and where I come from because it will fuel the desire to achieve success.” I have always been a hard worker and have always strived to be the best I can be. Coming from a low-income family I didn’t have many resources to help aid me educationally and physically, but I have learned to embrace what I have and continue to push forward to achieve my goals.

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ACOTE accreditation | NBCOT certification

The USC entry-level master’s degree program (cost of attendance) is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education® (ACOTE®) of the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA). The USC entry-level doctorate in occupational therapy (OTD) degree program (cost of attendance) is accredited by ACOTE®. View our program’s ACOTE® standards public data. ACOTE® c/o the American Occupational Therapy Association, Inc.®, 7501 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 510E, Bethesda, MD 20814, (301) 652-AOTA, www.acoteonline.org.

Professional program graduates are eligible to apply for the national certification examination administered by the National Board for Certification in Occupational Therapy, Inc.® (NBCOT®), nbcot.org. All states require licensure to practice; a felony conviction may affect a graduate’s ability to sit for the NBCOT® OTR certification examination or attain state licensure. Program results from the NBCOT® can be found online at www.nbcot.org/Educators-Folder/SchoolPerformance.