Fieldwork Makes the Dream Work

September 23, 2019
by Noelle

Fieldwork Life Hacks

Last Wednesday marked my last first day of Level I Fieldwork ever! Now, the words “fieldwork placement” tend to elicit different emotions from different students. I know I for one get a weird mix of excitement and anxiety that results in an expression resembling the nervous smile emoji — what if I hate where I’m placed? What if it’s my new dream job? What if I don’t get along with the Clinical Instructor? Oh god what’s the commute going to look like? I just hope there’s parking . . . 😬

I’m not going to lie, those thoughts raced through my mind at the start of every semester including this one. But I’ve made it to this point and can confidently say that my fieldwork experience has been one of the highlights of this program for me. And it’s not because I was placed at any particular site or found my absolute dream position. I made a commitment to myself last fall that I was going to trust the process. HA! Trust the process?! Yeah it wasn’t easy. I forced myself to let go of the expectations that where I was placed was going to determine my future job, OTD, etc (it sounds ridiculous to me now but I felt that back then). Luckily for me though, I have always been a “it is what you make it” kind of girl, and I believe that attitude served me very well when it came to fieldwork. At each placement, I found aspects I loved and will now seek out as well as things I really didn’t like and will avoid when I’m looking for positions in the future. I discovered new things about OT, about myself, that I may not have had I chosen my placements.  By trusting the process and seeing level I fieldwork for what it is — an opportunity to get exposed to a population and a setting — I can move forward with no regrets and lots of lessons learned for wherever the process takes me next!

After all this “trust the process” talk, how could I not recommend Etta James’s “Trust in Me”?

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