Student Blog
Makayla

The Occupations That Make Me Who I Am ⟩
April 23, 2026, by Makayla

Beginnings and Endings School/Life Balance What are OS/OT?

In honor of OT month, I would like to share a piece reflecting on how my engagement and participation have contributed to my daily routines, roles, and identity. As an undergraduate senior set to graduate next month, I am very much in an introspective and contemplative period as my time here at USC is numbered. I want to reflect on my occupations, the meaningful activities that occupy my time, and the collective experiences that have made me who I am today.

Shooting film photography is an occupation that has supported my identity since I was a child, and it involves using a point-and-shoot film camera to capture memorable moments, whether it be with friends, family, nature, or my life as it plays out. The nature of film photography is that it can be an intentional or spontaneous activity where I am able to express my creativity and capture candid shots. Something special about my own film camera is that it was passed down from my dad, who captured film of his own life as well. The element of surprise when I review my developed film is what makes film photography so enjoyable because it is not viewable in the moment, so you never know what to expect or how one moment of my life was captured. Over the years I have acquired countless photographs, from when I was little up until now, that have captured candid memories that can take me back to a brief moment in my life whenever I reflect upon them.

My practice of shooting film photography contributes to my own identity, as I am a very sentimental person. This extends into my collection of photos, shirts, and other trinkets that are reminiscent of enjoyable past experiences. As a result, this trait can manifest in how I interact with people or people I had known previously, acknowledging our prior experiences or history of knowing each other before. I always come back to photos and these memorabilia to reflect on how I lived out those experiences and how different a person I was.

Additionally, creativity is central to my identity, as I capture photographs stemming from my inner imagination to craft the best representation of the important events in my life. A photo never changes, even when the people in it do. With a few clicks of a button, I embrace the side of me that never wants to stop crafting and creating the perfect shots while having tangible items to be remembered by.

In this current day and age, while it is easier to use your phones in capturing photos of much higher quality, I see using film photography as preserving tradition, and I believe that there is power in raw memories when you cannot see them right away. I recognize how associations from the past are able to reinvoke new meanings through a present lens. I realize that longing for past memories is a mark of a life well-lived, and in the face of life’s ups and downs, these memories serve as a reminder that better days are to come with different people, places, and contexts.

Going to the beach is another occupation that has supported my identity, and this entails riding my bike on the strand, walking my dog, sharing a meal with a friend, tanning on the sand with a good book in hand, celebrating birthdays, or swimming in the ocean’s waves. Because I live close to the beach, it has become central to my identity, as it contributes to my sense of leisure through relaxation and rejuvenation, while other times it offers me physical health benefits through exercise and vitamin D. My participation at the beach contributes to my identity as a Southern California native because when I gaze upon the beach, I recognize what a privilege it is to savor these moments and be able to share the beauty of nature with so many close friends, relatives, and fellow beachgoers as well. Participating in different activities at the beach contributes to my identity as a nostalgic and introspective person, where I can prioritize my mental well-being while basking in nature’s solace, as well as recognize how many different versions of myself have been to the beach for different capacities.

Attending concerts is an occupation that has supported my identity, and this activity involves seeing a musical artist’s performance at a venue while I am accompanied by friends or family. The concert experience for me can include dressing up, buying merchandise, and singing along to the musical artist that performs. Seeing a musical artist in person is a surreal experience for me because I am able to reflect on the moments where I am listening to them in my own day-to-day life. Seeing them before my eyes, singing live, is exciting and a full-circle experience to me. My participation in concert-going is reflective of my musical expressions that are central to my identity, as I feel deeply compelled by the emotions and song lyrics that the musical artist sings.

Participating in the collective effervescence of the concert experience contributes to my sense of social closeness, and these experiences, alongside other music fans, contribute to my identity in belonging, community, and deep emotional connection through musical curation. Collective effervescence at a concert entails synchronized singing, dancing, clapping, or cheering that follows concert norms and social etiquette. Concert-going is not only an occupation for community gathering, belonging, and mutual appreciation for artistry and culture, but it also reflects life’s realities and experiences around us.

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Oh the Places OT Will Take You: Presenting at My First Academic Conference at Harvard ⟩
April 22, 2026, by Makayla

Getting Involved School/Life Balance

In continuation of my last blog, Mural Therapy: Arts Justice Advocacy and School-Based OT Intervention, I wanted to share about how my participation in Mural Therapy led me to present about my unique experience at Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Alumni Color of Conference (AOCC) alongside the team of occupational therapist Serena Au, the mural artists, and Mural Therapy student volunteers. Our session, “Painting the Future: Using LA Street Art Culture for Immigrant Justice and Disability Advocacy in Schools,” sought to engage attendees in collective arts in action by participating in art activities rooted in graffiti used in both educational and community settings. By demonstrating how persistence fuels collective creativity, our session invited participants to reimagine education as a living canvas, where social justice emerges not only from policy but from communities painting their futures into existence.

Throughout my experience, I created a film to encapsulate the entire Mural Therapy process, documenting this past year’s murals’ impact on the students, mural artists, and surrounding communities alike. I had the pleasure of having attendees experience my film, where I shared interviews from key players of this project who are challenging stigmas surrounding disability, people of color, and graffiti. By introducing culturally sustaining, disability-inclusive creative practices that promote mental health, belonging, and student freedom and agency, I sought to reframe and affirm public art as a legitimate pedagogical and occupational therapy tool.

Throughout our session, we invited participants to doodle or color on our provided coloring sheets that depicted some of the mural artists’ pieces or graffiti alphabet. While doodling for learning, this practice helped them engage with our material and learn about how educators, community leaders, and students can co-create learning environments that challenge deficit-based narratives surrounding disability, migration, and graffiti cultures. Additionally, we led an intergenerational panel discussion featuring our team examining our lived experiences of implementing Mural Therapy, and closed with a Q+A that facilitated dialogue about transferring these strategies into other institutions. In doing so, attendees left with actionable strategies for building collaborative, human-centered learning environments that advance racial equity, disability justice, and immigrant community advocacy.

This was my first time at an academic conference, let alone presenting, and I was very nervous at first simply being in the room full of highly educated people. However, over the course of the conference, I was able to attend some very insightful sessions that helped ease my nerves, such as attending breakout sessions, panels, affinity breakfasts, networking receptions, and listening to keynote speakers.

Here are some highlights from the sessions I attended:

1. From Harm to Healing: Participatory Design for Just AI Futures

Here, I participated in an interactive design workshop investigating how AI increasingly shapes the education landscape, while reinforcing inequities, particularly for Black, Brown and low-income communities. I learned how centering cultural and embodied knowledge as a core design tool is imperative in using AI and education for true engines of innovation.

2. Designing Schools for Human Nervous Systems

In this session, I heard student testimonials about co-regulating classroom structures and how healing-centered practices, nervous system regulation, and relational safety can be embedded into school culture rather than just isolated within counseling spaces. I learned from a school’s empowerment team on how they use joy as resistance and focus on restorative justice systems that replace punitive discipline.

3. AOCC Founders Panel and Keynote Address

I learned about the sacred art of teaching and how, in education, we must treasure the spirit of our students and must not fall into spiritual bankruptcy. Every soul is worth saving, even with individuals that we may find challenges and hardship. Radical vulnerability and rich dialogue take patience, not just working with the ecosystem we are embedded in.

Additionally, I got the opportunity to immerse myself in the art scene that Harvard and Boston uniquely offered. I got to visit the Harvard Art Museum, where I got to meet contemporary Nepali artist, Sneha Shrestha, known artistically as IMAGINE, whose art installation was recently acquired by the Harvard Art Museum. Alongside the student volunteers, we learned about the architectural elements of her piece that were inspired by her hometown and how the latticed and arched shapes echo the doorways of many South Asian revered spaces. It was so enlightening being able to learn from this Harvard alumnus, and the work she has done in starting the Children’s Art Museum of Nepal and curating art programs and exhibits of South Asia across the world.

This day was especially special because it was International Women’s Day, and to be in the presence of strong women on this day served as such a great reminder for the wonderful work that raises the standards for our future generations and is continually being done to advance our communities and world at large. Here, I am pictured by two strong USC Chan alumni, Serena Au and Dr. Natalie Palencia, who was also a USC Chan student ambassador like myself.

Also, I got to explore the Harvard Art Museum’s Forbes Pigment Collection that houses rare and historic pigments actively used by conservation scientists at the museum. While recalling the Dodgers mural from this past winter that we worked on, it is interesting to learn about the intentionalities and the rich histories that pigments carry beyond the paint at our fingertips. Here, I learned that the very pigment that is used to create the iconic Dodger Blue pigment (Lapis Lazuli) is primarily and historically sourced from Afghanistan.

Lastly, I got to explore the Boston area with the team before I headed back to sunny, Southern California. I got to visit Faneuil Hall for some Boston clam chowder and even got to squeeze in a visit to see my cousin for dinner and check out Tufts University.

Attending Harvard AOCC was one of the first academic conferences that I have been to, and I was just so appreciative that I was able to inhabit the same space as so many knowledgeable and intelligent people. In the midst of so many hardships in the news and around our communities, it is reassuring to know that the work is still being done by so many dedicated individuals who continuously push the bar to advance education for all.

Since then, I have returned back to OT volunteering at the special education center — where Mural Therapy all started — and my film has been considered into the Harvard Film Archive. I have since presented about Mural Therapy in Dr. Gabe Craven’s OT310 course, Exploring Creative Occupations with OT Serena. I am so honored to share this amazing experience not only with Harvard, but also bringing it back to USC Chan. It is such a full-circle experience, as I previously took Dr. Gabe Craven’s OT310: Exploring Creative Occupations course this past semester, right when I first started participating in Mural Therapy as well. Being able to come back to Dr. Gabe Craven’s class and seeing the exact same excitement and curiosity this project gave me in the fellow undergraduate students engaged in the presentation gave me a deep sense of gratitude, purpose, and hope for the future.

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Mural Therapy: Arts Justice Advocacy and School-Based OT Intervention ⟩
March 24, 2026, by Makayla

Community Getting Involved Living in LA School/Life Balance

Every Friday, I have the pleasure of volunteering with USC Chan alumnus and school-based occupational therapist Serena Au, servicing students (ages 4-16) with moderate to severe disabilities at a special-education school.

Over the past winter, I participated in Mural Therapy, an interdisciplinary and accessible arts program that OT Serena founded at this special-education school in South Central Los Angeles where, every semester, professional artists are invited to collaborate with the students to provide culturally responsive art education and community-based healing.

While embracing the rich cultural scenes of L.A. public art, Mural Therapy results in the students painting an entire school-wide mural that helps beautify the campus and surrounding neighborhoods as well. This collaboration involves everyone on campus, including students, muralists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, healthcare assistants, special education teachers, and surrounding community members.

While Mural Therapy supports their mental and emotional health, students build connections between life skills development and occupational therapy treatment interventions. In doing so, students develop and work on a wide variety of occupational therapy goals, such as shoulder flexion/extension, fine motor skills/grasps, postural control, and bilateral coordination. Here, public art and graffiti are legitimized as pedagogical and therapeutic tools.

Last year, communities all over Los Angeles were at the center of constant environmental and political turmoil, and at its center, students at this special education center continuously navigate the intersectionality of their different identities and multiple layers of marginalization, including disability stigma, racialized barriers, and economic inequity. Yet in the wake of devastation, this year’s mural focused on painting over loss with color and storytelling, transcending trauma into collective artistic, educational, and social change.

Rooted in the themes of resilience and affirmations of L.A. culture, OT Serena decided to collaborate with a community muralist, Mister Alek, to paint a Dodgers mural, a profound symbol of intergenerational city pride embraced by the surrounding school and neighborhood community.

Before every mural, there is an extensive process in educating and engaging the students, faculty, and community members alike. This includes stenciling, decorating painting shirts, coloring the artist’s coloring pages, completing worksheets, and engaging in thoughtful lessons and discussions on the meanings and representation behind the mural to come.

For the Dodgers Mural, I sought to create a lesson on the history of the Dodgers, the sport of baseball, as well as educate on how disability representation in Major League of Baseball (MLB) remains prevalent. Prominent and outspoken figures have reshaped dominant narratives about individual differences that affect the field of play, including pitcher Jim Abbott, born without a right hand due to amniotic band syndrome, and African-American MLB player Curtis Pride, who was born deaf. Advances in technology have enabled adaptive versions of engaging with baseball for the blind and visually impaired, such as beep baseball leagues or OneCourt tactile tablets for fans to use at MLB stadiums.

Together with the students, we scaled the entire wall and painted the background. Students painted high, low, and across all the different directions, watching their brush strokes make permanent marks in ways that would be visible and celebrated publicly. It was really so powerful seeing students who are wheelchair-bound and rarely stand up willing to stand for long periods of time for something so cool, joyful, and regulating as the act of painting.

Through an OT lens, I recognized that the index finger isolation used to position a spray paint can on a vertical surface mirrors the same fine motor patterns students use to scroll or select on Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) devices on a horizontal surface. This skill transfer across different mediums and environments demonstrates just how powerful mural therapy transcends artistic expression into occupational therapy interventions in real time.

Mural therapy is not about painting a wall; it is creating a sensory and emotional experience because students are engaged in the texture of the wall, the consistency of the paint, the bristles of the brushes, and simply being present in the space.

Many students have diagnoses that make them sensitive to sensory input; however, they might need something like bright colors to pay attention or auditory input of the sounds of a shaking spray paint can. The high sensory and high visual impact that a mural can give is so important, as they act as mirrors to the students and give them validation in their artistic expressions.

Embracing the power of sports and teaching about the Dodgers is something that I hold near and dear to my heart. My family traces its roots to Lincoln Heights, just behind Dodger Stadium. I was raised in the South Bay, where I leaned on Asian baseball and basketball leagues to shape my sense of belonging and as anchors of my identity. Watching Shohei Ohtani take the field in Dodger blue or remembering the cultural impact of NBA player Jeremy Lin reinforced how Asian athletes can serve as powerful counter-narratives, disrupting longstanding stereotypes and affirming that we belong not at the margins of the game, but at its center.

These experiences fundamentally reframed how I conceptualize mobility, not just as physical movement, but as narrative and social possibility.

When I first learned to spray paint through this mural project with muralist Mister Alek, I had the pleasure of learning how to spray paint clouds and graffiti fills. Here, I experienced a renewed sense of freedom, a feeling reminiscent of being a child again. The spray paint moved quickly, fluidly, without hesitation, expanding across the wall in ways that felt limitless. That feeling embodied mobility: the ability to move, to explore, to take up space without restriction.

Mobility is often framed as purely physical attributes, but it is also social permission. It is about who is told they are capable of moving forward and who is told to stay still. For many students with disabilities, the message they receive is subtle but persistent: you are not smart enough, your body does not fit the mold, you are not athletic. This narrative restricts their personal potential long before physical barriers ever do.

Yet athletics has repeatedly proven that mobility can be redefined.

Coming off winning back-to-back World Series championships, the Los Angeles Dodgers players represent more than the name on the front of their uniforms. Rooted in the historic Elysian Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, the Dodgers have long been a focal point for surrounding Latino, Black, and Asian communities, and have long been present at the crossroads of social justice, solidarity, and community outreach. Known for their diverse fanbase and initiatives toward underserved communities, the team is a staple of L.A. culture and intergenerational city pride. Their presence reflects a broader story about who gets to occupy space — and who gets to be celebrated within it.

Mobility, curiosity, and excitement are not just themes of sport but foundations of inclusion. Within schools, athletics function as formative spaces where identity and belonging are not only expressed but also validated and legitimized. Murals serve as a direct reflection of the reality around us. When students participate in this mural, there is an public acknowledgement that they are contributing to something greater than themselves. Students perceive themselves adjacent to these positive role models through a lens of great admiration and reflection, bestowing greater agency and resolve in their own challenges.

Seeing themselves in the projection of the Dodgers players, this representation sets a precedent for newer generations to acknowledge that they can create archetypes of their own narratives. Promoting diverse athletic representation in schools fosters a critical appreciation for deconstructing structural barriers and validating marginalized experiences, serving as a liaison for cultivating a more inclusive world at large.

As an aspiring occupational therapist, my experience with mural therapy has reshaped how I understand education as a health, art, and embodied practice. Situated at the crossroads of USC, South Central, and disability communities, this experience has expanded how I envision my future field of practice.

Through shared creation, community belonging becomes tangible and imperative, challenging stigma surrounding graffiti artists, disability, and the individuals we often overlook in our daily lives. I look forward to participating with OT Serena for future murals, and I can’t wait to see all walks of life embrace and continue the legacy of the mural for years beyond my time!

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Occupational Awareness Abroad ⟩
January 29, 2026, by Makayla

Diversity International School/Life Balance

Over the course of my winter break, I had the pleasure of traveling to 3 different countries in Asia—Bangkok, Thailand; Saigon, Vietnam; and Hong Kong, China. While traveling with my family, I couldn’t wait to get some much-needed relaxation from a busy fall semester and enrich myself in the new cultural landscapes that each country had to offer. However, stepping into new cultural environments in each country heightened my awareness about how meaningful daily activities are deeply embodied and shaped through access, space, and societal values.  Viewing these cities through an occupational lens transformed what would have been ordinary or overlooked travel moments into thoughtful reflections of how occupational awareness and accessibility are embedded in every aspect of life. Here, I want to share some instances of my trip where I noticed small moments of occupational awareness and justice in action.

 

Bangkok, Thailand

1. Massages
One of the biggest things I noticed in Bangkok, Thailand, was the prevalence of many massage services all across where I stayed. Even before coming to Thailand, many people recommended that I try their massages. To me, the act of getting a massage is a luxury, a paid service towards one’s own self-care, or part of a therapeutic practice, at least in the United States. However, in Thailand, the emphasis on massages as a therapeutic intervention is not just a tourist must-do; it is an essential, culturally embedded, health-maintenance occupation. Massages are more than a service but rather a routine, vital practice integrated into daily life that supports the occupational performance of all individuals across the lifespan. They are a part of one’s daily body maintenance rather than an intervention used after experiencing pain, injury, or ongoing discomfort. In doing so, massages support individuals’ occupational performance by improving mobility, reducing pain, and most importantly, supporting an individual’s ability to meaningfully participate in everyday activities with greater independence and ease.

2. Transportation
While riding the BTS Skytrain, I watched as people used these means of transportation for commuting to work, travelling to schools, and participating in social and leisure activities. What stuck out to me was the priority seating readily available to those who needed it, including disabled passengers, elderly passengers, pregnant passengers, women with infants, and monks. What surprised me was not only the inclusion of monks, reflecting a deep-seated and high respect for their spiritual, social, and cultural significance in Buddhist society, but also the fact that people respected these directions and offered these seats for passengers with these special needs. While priority seating is nothing new in the United States, I became especially aware of this inclusive signage because it is often overlooked or not completely followed in the United States.

3. Chair Lifts

In densely packed cities such as Bangkok, it can make for a lot of tall buildings with multiple floors. While I found that elevators and escalators were readily accessible in transit spaces, malls, or official city buildings, areas dense with local street vendors, like Bangkok’s Chinatown, often required navigating uneven surfaces or stairs. As a result, mobility limitations can shift even just from one block to another, which can be largely inaccessible for vulnerable populations, including older adults. One place that caught my eye was a restaurant where I went for dinner with my family. Here, there was a chair lift on the stairs that led to the restaurant’s entrance. While I overlooked this feature at first glance, it wasn’t until I was leaving the restaurant that I noticed this and snapped a quick picture. This moment underscored how these essential accessibility features can go unnoticed to those who do not need them, yet are critical for mobility for individuals whose participation in daily activities requires them for support.

4. Tactile Paving

Braille on railing

Braille and Tactile Floor Plan of Stanley Island

2. Pedestrian crossings

Aids for Visually Impaired Persons

Another Aid for Visually Impaired Person

While crossing the busy streets of Hong Kong, I noticed yellow aids for visually impaired persons.  I tried this out for myself by waving my hand underneath the button and found that they serve two functions. The button vibrates underneath to indicate when it is safe to cross while also emitting a beeping/clicking sound on both sides of the street to help individuals navigate across the street.

3. Tactile Paving and Signage

Tactile Paving and Signage

Here is another example of tactical paving with different surface indicators, as well as indicators for priority seating and elevators.

It was such a privilege to visit Asia, and the act of noticing can go such a long way. I hope I can visit again in the future!

Mural in Macau, China

 

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