Student Blog

A Whole New (Quarantine) World ⟩
March 30, 2020, by Japeth

Life Hacks

As occupational beings, we long for social interaction with family, peers, and even with unfamiliar people; we want to explore the world and be with nature; we want to establish our routines, plan for the coming weeks and months as we enjoy life day by day; and definitely, we all want to live life to the fullest! Can you imagine life when we can all do these things? Doesn’t it look perfect? Can you now imagine a life that does not allow us to do any of the said activities? Honestly, for me, I don’t need to imagine anymore — it is actually happening right here and right now.

The quarantine life has affected us in many, many ways: universities transitioned to online classes, companies decided to implement a work from home set up, restaurants and coffee shops are now only available for to-go orders, and so on. But what can we really do? As my wonderful professor Dr. Emily Ochi had told me before, this is something that nobody wanted, or this is nobody’s fault; but its effects and consequences are left for us to endure. And I think she is right — we are innocent victims of such circumstances and yet here we are still trying to keep things going! (Just a quick shout out to Dr Ochi, Dr. Danny Park and his Global Initiatives team, and the rest of the faculty and staff of USC Chan for checking in with us and for making sure that we are doing okay despite everything!!)

Just when I thought that my previous blog post was the most personal that I’ll be posting ever, I think this pandemic proved me wrong. Here are some tips (all based on my personal experience, so please don’t judge LOL), that you can do while being on quarantine:

1. Check in
   The power of checking in has never been this appreciated to some people, including myself. Who would ever thought that a simple “Hey, how are you?” would mean the world? In stressful times like this, we do not know who to contact or communicate with since everyone is actually going through the same battle. We don’t want to give additional emotional or psychological baggage to our friends and family, because surely, they are also going through a lot. But I think having a support group or being with certain people (virtually) around you and making them feel that you are there for them and vice versa, makes a huge difference!
2. Escape but always go back
   We are humans and humans as we are, the effects of stress can easily penetrate our mind and body. We should learn when to stop, when to take a break, and when to continue again. When you have so many things at hand and you feel overwhelmed, remember this saying: “Rest if you must but never quit!”
3. Enjoy today and always try look forward to better days
   I know that when times get rough, it is just not easy to have fun and enjoy every moment. I know that uncertainty always has a way to ruin our mood, but I also know that we are bigger than our uncertainties in life. If today does not feel okay, maybe tomorrow will, or the day after tomorrow, or maybe next week! Funny how this sounds like, but there is always something better that is coming our way. Maybe my plans for this week or next week are ruined, but who said I don’t have the next month to make another set of plans?

“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” — a line that represents all of us right now. We are tough and we will continue to thrive, even in the darkest of times. Fight On!

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February is Over, Black History is not! ⟩
March 27, 2020, by Kat

Diversity

“Black history is American history” — Morgan Freeman

February is over. But that does not mean that we as a country should stop celebrating Black history and Black culture. During February, many events took place on campus at USC to celebrate Black History Month. Clubs such as the BGSN, the CBCSA, and the BSA held a variety of festivals, hosted guest speakers, and career networking opportunities in the spirit of Black History Month.

One specific event that I participated in was the Black Pharmacy Society’s “The Black Experience in Healthcare: Challenges and Opportunities”. This event was a panel composed of current Black students from various disciplines that spoke on their experience of being a student of color at USC. I am honored to say that I was on this panel. The fields of occupational therapy, physical therapy, physician assistants, medicine, pharmacy, and dentistry were all well represented. Meaningful conversation surrounding imposter syndrome, the importance of mentorship and representation were a few of the topics discussed. Seeing people who look like you in different fields is very important. For those that may not know, imposter syndrome is “the feeling that you haven’t earned your success, you simply got lucky, and you’re a fraud or ‘imposter’ around people who actually earned it and know what they’re doing” (cited from empowerwork).

Imposter syndrome was discussed from the perspective that sometimes Black students feel as though they are imposters in their respective fields due to the lack of representation within their fields. These students feel as though they are not and will not be able to compete with their counterpart peers. These feelings can be overwhelming, isolating, and can have rippling effects to the success of Black students, or any student experiencing imposter syndrome.

However, I believe Maya Angelou’s quote, “the more you know of your history, the more liberated you are,” calls students, in this case specifically Black students, to look to history for empowerment. Students may be the first in their family to go to college, graduate school, or may be the only Black student in class. But let’s take a look at history:

• Madam C. J. Walker was the first female millionaire. She was Black.
• Dr. Daniel Hale Williams was the first to complete a successful open heart surgery in America. He was Black.
• Katherine Johnson was the first female to receive credit as an author for a NASA research paper. She was Black.

These are only a few of the firsts in America that belong to the Black community. I do not mention these first to compare the Black community to other communities. I state these facts to empower all minority students to stand together, be great, and keep breaking barriers. Be the first. Be the best. Black history should serve as an inspiration to us all.

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Ergo Externship ⟩
March 26, 2020, by Kevin

Externships

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic escalating each day, I had an unforgettable externship experience that kept me uplifted during these difficult times. My original externship plan was to attend an ergonomic certification course in-person and shadow Marissa Marchioni OTD, OTR/L, CEAS at the USC Occupational Therapy Faculty Practice. As the situation escalated, I chose to do most of my externship remotely from home. Ultimately, I decided on three main objectives for the externship:

1. Become a Certified Ergonomics Assessment Specialist
To kickoff this externship experience, I enrolled in the online version of the CEAS course to increase my understanding of ergonomics and further my professional development. The CEAS taught me the basics of evaluating ergonomic risk factors and areas for improvement in a wide variety of workplace settings including offices, hospitals, and manufacturing plants. While much of the information from the course had been covered in the ergonomic elective, my grasp of ergonomics was strengthened, and I was able to apply what I learned to the shadowing experiences with Dr. Marchioni and in the design of my ergonomic device. Additionally, at the end of the course, I received an official certification to assess workplaces for ergonomics which I hope will be a valuable asset in my future career.

2. Shadow Ergonomic Assessments with Marissa Marchioni OTD, OTR/L, CEAS
Before the “Stay at Home” order was put into action, I had the opportunity to shadow several ergonomic assessments with Dr. Marchioni. This was an amazing experience because I was able to see everything I had learned from the CEAS course in real world practice from the lens of an occupational therapist. Dr. Marchioni skillfully used her knowledge of ergonomics, activity analysis, and psychosocial factors to deliver comprehensive ergonomic assessments that were tailored to each person in their specific work setting. I was especially amazed at Dr. Marchioni’s ability to impart her own leadership skills on her clients to create “Ergo Leaders” in the workplaces she assessed. An “Ergo Leader” is a person in the workplace who advocates for positive ergonomic changes such as adjusting the lighting in the space or leading periodic stretch breaks. After observing several assessments, Dr. Marchioni gave me the opportunity to assist on an assessment! While I was nervous to jump in so quickly, I took this offer as a leadership opportunity to put my ergonomic education to practice. As we started our assessment, I was pleasantly surprised to see how much I had learned over a short period of time and with Dr. Marchioni’s support the assessment went well!

3. Designing and Prototyping a New Ergonomic Device
One of the main goals of my externship was to bring together all the education and shadowing experience to design a new ergonomic device. After over 100 hours of 3D design, prototyping, and feedback sessions with Dr. Marchioni, my final prototype is finished! This device will help people to be comfortable on the go and in shared workspaces. While, I cannot give away the details as I am in the process of obtaining a patent, I will be presenting the device during the Mark and Semira Moshayedi Innovation Competition that is scheduled to be held in April!

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When You Have a Full House Sheltering in Place ⟩
March 23, 2020, by Catherine

Life Hacks

Having just come back from Spring Break, many of us are trying to figure out our new routines.  I am grateful that despite being an international student, my family and I are together, safe and well.  Nevertheless, living in a house with a kindergartner, a fourth grader, two active older adults, and two adults working remotely makes one full house.  Boundaries need to be set in place, while new structures will need to be created while some old ones must be maintained.  As the resident OT in our home, I have set some new house rules that I hope will pull us through, and might inspire some ideas for you.

• Get out of your pajamas.  Despite having to stay home all day, we still have school and jobs to attend to.  Maintaining our morning routines as though we actually have to leave the home has been helpful in getting the day started.  Getting a little dressed up before I sit down in my work area has helped me get in the zone and stay focused.  I have seen that this has also worked with the kids.  Getting into their school clothes has reminded them that we are not on an extended vacation, but trying to go through business as usual.
• Separate your space.  Even before the struggles of “shelter in place” we had heard countless times that it is helpful to separate our work and rest space for our mental and physical health.  While working remotely has been a privilege, it can sometimes feel that I am constantly working, when I am never able to leave the confines of my desk in my bedroom.  To address this, I recently moved all work related materials into our shared “office” aka the dining room table that we rarely use.  This has become our new space where we each do our respective school assignments and work. A makeshift open office space if you will.  When we are sitting here, we are learning to be respectful of our time, but I can see that it is also teaching the little ones to practice social etiquette.  Nevertheless, I am just one poke away to answer any geometry questions should they come up.
• Make yourself a quiet place. During the unpredictable and challenging times we live in today, a quiet place to meditate, think, and even just breathe for a couple minutes have been a luxury.  Social distancing aside, as a caregiver and a member of the “sandwich generation” sometimes you need to give yourself some me time.  Especially if you can hear children screaming in the background for 90% your waking hours, silence is golden.  I have found that the car has been a refreshing place of a few minutes of peace and quiet.
• Don’t forget to connect to other people.  While I can not emphasize enough how much I love my family, it has been important to keep in touch with those I am not blood related to.  Thanks to the internet and all the apps out there, I have been able to stay connected with my network.  Whether it be through text or video chat, or just commenting on posts, it’s good to stay connected and check in.
• Communicate.  Sometimes when we are with our family we can forget basic communications.  We can make assumptions that we fully understand each other’s needs, leading to more misunderstandings and possibly even hurt feelings.  Extended periods of close connectedness,  can be met with unexpected challenges we may not have anticipated.  For example, when I need to concentrate, I prefer a calm environment, but my sister does her best work when she is talking and walking in circles, and prefers to use her speakerphone.  I never knew this until we tried to share a work space and I will leave the details out, but you probably can imagine.  Through open communication we were able to reach a compromise. I gifted her a pair of wireless earphones and she has agreed to take her important calls on the lawn.

These are just some reflections on my attempts to create some balance and productivity while we adapt to our current state of life in my family.  I hope to continue to share with you my progress with any new ideas or updates that I think may be helpful or entertaining.  As always, I am here for all of you who may have any questions about my life as an OTD resident, student, and as a resource of support.  Fight on!

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Sometimes life gets in the way — and it’s ok! ⟩
February 28, 2020, by Japeth

Life Hacks

Spring semester is almost over and my blogging life is halfway through. This area of work as a student ambassador has been a privilege and has served as a good way for me to share a bit of my life to all. This post is, by far, the most personal that I am posting; I am not one to post my thoughts and emotions online, but I feel like this post could be inspiring to everyone who might be going through a lot, all at once.

2019 was a good year to me: I was able to come to LA and take my MA at my dream university; I met so many friends from my cohort and other cohorts, and even outside of the Chan Division; I got the ambassador position which I really wanted; I am now specializing in the areas of OT that I am most interested in, and etc! So, how can one think that 2020 would be not so nice, right? When 2020 started, I had the most positive of thoughts I could ever think. However, as days and weeks unfold, I feel as though bad news just keep coming.

January-February have been really tough, not just for me but for most of the people I know. When bad times occur, we need to trust our coping mechanisms to help us get through the obstacles. Mine happens to be doing a lot of stress eating, retail therapy, or something spiritual like hearing a mass. In addition to these well-established coping strategies, I explored a new one this semester: self-talking. I think that it has been really helpful to me, especially in shaping my thoughts from a negative standpoint to becoming more positive, or at least to see the positive side of every awful situation.

My two takeaways in this entire two-month emotional and psychological rollercoaster ride would be:

1. There will always be things and situations that will come our way and are definitely out of our control; but what we do have control in is how we react to them. One example I can share would be the cancellation of our international externship. I am sure that everyone is frustrated and sad about this. But when I thoroughly reflect on the situation, I realized that nobody wanted this to happen and we are all victims of such circumstance. Maybe the healthiest way to deal with this is to accept that we cannot change it; rather, we can find a solution.
2. It is all about perspective. This is really difficult to practice because when we are under high levels of stress and tension, our perspective gets blurry. For me, it took me a long while to be able to really do this by heart. One time, Dr. Milman, one of USC Chan’s best professors, greeted me while we came across each other in the hallway. She asked me if I was having a good day since I was really smiling at her. All I said was, “You will have a good day if you think that it is a good day . . . perspective is everything!”

I have been using “Fight On” many, many times when I end a blog post, so now I want to end this one with the line that I have been telling my friends lately: “When you hit rock bottom, there is no way to go but UP!!!”

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