Student Blog
Claire
(Un)balanced? ⟩
October 10, 2014, by Claire
Life Hacks School/Life Balance
The school semester is well underway — we are about halfway done! Hang in there, folks! One goal that I made for myself these two weeks is to work on LIFE BALANCE. (life balance? what is that?). In OT534: Health Promotion and Wellness, we discussed the importance of lifestyle balance and healthy routines. We did an activity using the Balance Wheel, which is a worksheet that helps you categorize how you spend your day in one hour time slots. The categories include Leisure, Individual care, Free/unscheduled time, and Effort in school/work activities (LIFE). Looking at my completed worksheet, I realized that my Balance Wheel was very much unbalanced — it consisted of Individual care (mostly meaning sleep) and Effort in school/work, with very little leisure and free time. I also noticed that I was frequently stressed and my buddies often commented that I looked tired.
So in my new initiative to be in a better state of health, I went OT on myself and started to pay closer attention to where all my time was going. I downloaded an app that allowed me to track my day by the half hour, and over the course of last week, I noted what I did, my productivity and satisfaction level. At the end of the week, I made a few goals for myself: waste less time browsing on my phone (this really added up for me!) and get in more studying earlier in the week to prevent high stress later. This week, I am making an effort to change my study habits in order for me to be less stressed and more pleasant around others. The method seems to be working now that I am making more conscious decisions on what I do with my time. Work and school, leisure, rest, and spending time with friends — these are all very important! I am happier now knowing I don’t need to choose one and sacrifice another by managing my time better!
I always have to remind myself that if I want to help others live their life to the fullest, I have to be healthy and taking care of myself as well. For others who are also feeling overwhelmed, maybe this is a helpful idea for you! Even just take a step back for fifteen minutes and breathe, meditate, take a nap, exercise . . . and you will feel more refreshed!
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Yay USC undergrad OT classes! ⟩
October 3, 2014, by Claire
Today’s a shoutout post to all USC undergraduate students taking OT courses! A couple weeks ago, Leila and I had the privilege to visit OT classes at the main UPC campus to talk about the Occupational Science minor program. I was also lucky to give a HSC tour with some Bachelor’s-to-Master’s OT students earlier this semester. You guys really rock! As a current Bachelor-to-Master’s OT student (last year already, wow!), these assignments mean a lot to me personally. It was super exciting to see this year’s classes and see how much they have grown. In my freshman year (that was back in 2010!), I took OT310x Creativity Workshop and OT250 Introduction to Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy. I remember a student ambassador coming to talk to us about Occupational Therapy, and it’s so crazy to see everything come full circle. Not only that, that year we had about almost ten students signed up for the Friday morning class, but this year, the class is now double its size! Thank you to all the students for hearing our spiels about how amazing occupational therapy is and how much we love USC OT, and I had so much fun answering any questions that people had. USC Pre-OT club is having their first site visit — go check it out!! Best of luck to all USC undergrads — hope to see you at other USC OT events or at the Master’s program!
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New name, new initiative! ⟩
September 26, 2014, by Claire
Beginnings and Endings Community International
Last Wednesday was a super exciting day for USC OT! With a $20 million dollar naming grant, our division is now called USC Mrs. T.H. Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy. Students, faculty and many distinguished guests including former AOTA President and USC alumna Mary Foto, who I had the honor to escort. President Nikias came to make the announcement, along with our marching band (it’s not a big event without our Trojan Marching Band)!
As students, we received the invitation to attend the “historic announcement” a couple weeks before the event. Leading up to the announcement, we were all wondering what it would be: a new building? a new program? TUITION WAIVED?!
It was really inspiring to hear USC Trustee Ronnie Chan share his vision to unite efforts with USC to expand OT to others areas in the world, such as China. We could all tell this was a very special moment for their entire family. Having studied abroad in China during my undergrad and interned at an occupational therapy department in Taiwan, I would really love to see occupational therapy and East Asia come together even more closely. Our global initiative has really taken off with the MAI program and this past summer’s first international language exchange program, and I’m excited to see how this outreach will continue to grow!
This event made it to our USC headline news, and it was also really exciting to see how this announcement is gathering a lot of attention from other USC students. “Oh you study OT? Didn’t you guys just get a huge donation? That’s awesome!” It has been a great way to have a conversation about what OT is and why it’s awesome!
Because of our new name, all of our social media usernames are also being updated. If you haven’t been following, you can check out all the social media links on our website. We like to Instagram. 😊
Also, how does everyone like our new website? The photos are of our actual students and faculty — many of my classmates were going through and finding themselves on the website. (Leila made it in! Can anyone find her? 😛)
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White coats, scantrons, and football, oh my! ⟩
September 5, 2014, by Claire
Happy Friday! Last week, our division held the white coat ceremony for our MAI, MAII (including BS-MA), and OTD students. It was very exciting to see everyone look so professional (and spiffy) in their white coats. I remember when taking the oath last year, I was very inspired by what occupational therapists value and strive to do in their practice. Congratulations to all of you!
This week is our second week of class! I am currently in the adult physical rehabilitation immersion, and the course has taken on a new format known as Team-Based Learning, where learning takes place in a team setting as opposed to traditional teaching styles like lecture. In general, the process is: 1. Pre-readings; 2. Individual Readiness Assurance Test (IRAT); 3. Group Readiness Assurance Test (GRAT); 4. Reviewing Test; 5. Case Applications. To be honest, some of us were a little skeptical about the model when it was first introduced to us. Personally, I was worried about completing the pre-reading and missing information that would have been presented in a lecture. However, our professors continually referenced the research behind this style of teaching and we had our first “RAT”s this week. I found myself much more engaged in the entire process — our adrenaline was definitely running and it encouraged active discussion. Plus, the GRAT is a scratch-off scantron and there’s something exciting about seeing a star on your scantron to notify your team that the answer chosen is correct. I’m interested in seeing how the rest of the semester will play out!
Last weekend we kicked off the football season with a win against Fresno State. Tomorrow USC takes on Stanford. I know several friends who are trekking up to NorCal this weekend for the game (we call it the “weekender”). Fight on!
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Goodbye, Summer! Hello, Fall semester! ⟩
August 26, 2014, by Claire
Hello again!
It has been a fantastic summer full of learning, and it’s good to be back. To pick up where we left off from my first post, commencement was great! Dr. Elizabeth Yerxa was our commencement speaker, and I felt like all of us were a little starstruck because she is such a distinguished member in the field of occupational therapy. The following Monday, I began my first Level II Fieldwork at a private pediatric clinic called PlaySteps in Northern California. It was an incredible experience because I was able to have some kids on my own caseload and the occupational therapists there provided great mentorship. I learned pretty quickly that observing a therapist working with a kid is very different from actually treating the kid yourself. It seems to require many years of experience to have reflexes as fast as the therapists’ that I observed during fieldwork! One of the highlights from this summer was being able to build up rapport with the kids and think of creative activities that match with their interests. For example, one kid that was on my caseload had difficulty keeping up with his peers during writing tasks and we worked on handwriting together. He told me that he was reading the Magic Tree House book series recently, which I was excited about because I read them when I was a kid too! We decoded mystery notes with number-letter codes. It was fun! One fulfilling moment was when we finished a session, and a kid casually commented while leaving, “I like OT.” WHOOHOO! One challenge for me was maintaining flexibility with how a session may go — sometimes a kid doesn’t show up, other times an activity simply doesn’t go as planned. I definitely felt myself grow in the skills of a pediatric occupational therapist, but also recognized that there are many many many things left to learn.
Here’s to another great school year!
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