Student Blog
School/Life Balance
M.I. ⟩
February 15, 2011, by Yao
Classes School/Life Balance What are OS/OT?
A great opportunity and a blessing in disguise.
I just finished my first session and am about to start working on the homework for my second session of Motivational Interviewing. Motivational Interviewing is an elective class that is offered the spring semester over three Saturdays with days starting at 9am and scheduled to end around 4pm. I originally elected to take the class not only because one of my favorite professors was teaching it but also because it was a method that I planned to use in my research project. I went into class that first Saturday with the mindset of just learning a clinical skill and perfecting and perfecting until I felt that I had it right. Boy did I have the wrong idea!
The day started off with the basics and the history behind motivational interviewing and some video examples of practitioners incorporating it into practice. Then it came time to practice. Like I had mentioned before it was not a skill that should just be learned cold and practiced numerous times, rather it’s a skill that you need to feel and experience. This feeling and experience will guide your use of the skill, a real feeling and investment in the person that you’re talking to. To me it’s not a skill that you can just practice with a partner and in the middle ask if you’re doing it right, but something that when given the opportunity should be used to help fully understand the origin of certain actions and feelings. And as my professor mentioned, “If you do it well, people won’t even know it”; not to echo what I mentioned in my previous entry but sometimes listening can bring about more answers and chances for change than automatically trying to fix the problem as soon as you hear one.
On another note this motivational interviewing class has allowed me to tap into my emotions for the first time in about a year and a half. When things happened over these past two years that required emotional investment I tended to push them aside because there was that ever present need to do well in school and live in the moment with school and my social life here in Los Angeles. I was surprised at how I felt, not to say that there was a huge revelation and that I was denying my feelings these past two years. But I was able to identify emotions and feelings that I thought I have overcome or had just died down over the past years. I’m looking forward to the second session to further explore these feelings and try and resolve them instead of just pushing them aside and making school the excuse for not addressing them. It’s a nice complement to the other coursework this semester. It also is a reminder that no matter what is going on you have to consider taking care of yourself so you can provide your best care to others.
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Working My Way to a Healthier Routine ⟩
January 30, 2011, by Carissa
Life Hacks School/Life Balance
Recently, I have been reflecting on how I can create a healthier lifestyle for myself. I realized that in order to create an exercise routine, I must take my aversion to the gym into consideration. I have tried to deal with it by going with a friend or bringing fun, energizing music. However, I always end up finding excuses not to go. It is a 20 minute walk from my apartment, and by the time I get there, my energy is already depleted, and I’m already thinking about going home. So this past week, rather than push the gym on myself any more, I bought myself exercise DVDs. With them, I don’t have to go anywhere to exercise. I have the privacy of my apartment. No energy is expended on picking out clothes to wear. I can jump in the shower as soon as I’m done. It is pretty amazing, as I was able to wake up early Saturday morning, complete the video, and have the time and energy to run errands and be productive the rest of the day. I feel like I can be much more successful with this routine than trying to include the gym in my day. Week 1 towards increased health. 😊 Also, regarding the creation of a healthier routine, I realized that I finished some homework early (accidentally). It feels good to not procrastinate, even though it was not really intentional. I need to try that more often.
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Finding what is meaningful to you ⟩
October 6, 2010, by Austen
Life Hacks School/Life Balance
Occupations are the activities we fill our time with, the things we do daily. In our Occupational Therapy program, we have read a lot about how important occupations are to health and well-being, and why engaging in meaningful activities positively influences our overall quality of life. It seems obvious that doing things we enjoy helps us live healthier happier lives, but I did not really think about it until we discussed it in class. Since then, I have made a conscious effort to incorporate activities I love doing in each and every day. As a result, I am happier and more satisfied with my life.
I danced on my high school’s state champion dance team for four years. We practiced for around 15 hours a week, learning and perfecting our routines to compete. Sometimes I could not stand walking into that gymnasium room any more, I was sick of our music, and annoyed with our coach yelling at us. But when I was dancing in front of hundreds of people hearing fans cheer me on, I remembered why I love dancing. My muscles would take over and they knew exactly what to do, my mind would go blank, and time seemed to fly by. I reached what we call “flow.” But when I went to college, I stopped dancing. I started freshman year as pre-med, and had no time for it. I lost one of my most meaningful occupations. Looking back, I can see how negatively it affected me. I was low on energy, not as happy, and felt like something big was missing from my life. It is almost as if I did not realize how important and influential dancing was to me until I lost it. It was not until years later, during the first year in the OT program, that I was inspired to pick it back up again.
I joined the USC Repertory Dance Company through the School of Theater on main campus at USC. Having dance back in my life has made a huge difference in my wellbeing over the past year. I have a social network of friends in my company, I get lots of exercise, and I have a creative outlet for expression. It is a wonderful right-brain activity to balance out all the left-brain work we do in school. It is a chance to get lost in music, explore new movement, and step into the character of whoever I want to be. I can leave my problems, concerns, and anxieties at the door and forget about them during rehearsals. Picking up dance again helped me experience for myself what it is we have been learning in OT school. I now understand the role meaningful occupation plays in one’s life. Experiencing the negative effect of not dancing solidified the importance of pursuing things I enjoy doing as often as possible. I am going to continue to engage in meaningful activities such as dance because they truly make me a happier, healthier, more motivated and curious person.
What do you enjoy doing? What makes time fly by for you? What do you look forward to doing everyday? If those question bring specific things to mind, hold on the them and continue engaging in those activities. If nothing comes to mind, go out and find something that makes you happy and excited. This will make each day fulfilling and help you achieve overall wellbeing.
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Looking Back: 2nd Year → Graduation! ⟩
May 14, 2010, by Mari
Beginnings and Endings Getting Involved School/Life Balance
2nd Year of OT school!
There is so much that I could talk about within the last few weeks, let alone, my whole second year! I can’t believe that’s it’s already time to graduate! Have you ever felt that you had so many things to do and just not enough time to do it all?! I imagine many people can relate. That’s how I felt for the last month of this past semester. Not only was I trying to keep up with my weekly school work, I was preparing to take our comprehensive exam at the end of the year and thinking about my summer fieldwork, which I will be going to Hawaii (my home) for. Just a few weeks ago, I was wondering how I would ever get it all done, and now, I will be graduating! The comp exam, which covers all our second year material and is required to pass in order to graduate, is finally done — what a relief! Although I was really nervous for it, as I am with any exam, I felt assured that I had learned all the material once before, so I should do well. To find out that I passed was the last thing before graduation! Tomorrow, we will be graduating as the USC OT Class of 2010!! We’re making history! Next for me is my last level II fieldwork, which will be on the outpatient service at a hospital in Hawaii where I’m from. I’m so excited to be moving home! It’s really weird because I’ve been in California for a while, but I think I’m about ready to move on to this next chapter in my life! Looking back on my second year, there are so many things that happened, it’s hard to capture it all in one blog. I will post a few pictures of some of my favorite memories!
In November, last fall, I had the opportunity to attend the AOTA Student Conclave, which was held in Baltimore. I travelled with Grace, a fellow OT student and along with going to to conference, visited friends, toured D.C., and lobbied on Capital Hill Day at Senator Boxer’s office (see picture below). It was a lot of fun and a good break before the semester finished. I enjoyed spending time with my classmates outside of class and getting connected with the OT community. It was a great experience and I highly recommend it if you get the opportunity to go to something like that!
Another fun break toward the end of the fall semester was going to my very first and only USC football game! It was so much fun to hang out with friends and have the “real” USC experience! I was able to go to the USC v. UCLA game, and we won!! It was a great end to the semester, even though the football team didn’t do as great as they usually have done in the past! I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to go to another USC football game, although USC does play UH (University of Hawaii) at Hawaii in their season opener next season! So, we’ll see!
Throughout the whole second year, as you probably already know, I was a student ambassador for our department, along with Sarah, Michelle, Myka, and Gus. It was truly a great experience for me to work close with our recruitment office. We were all able to do grad fairs, information sessions, recruitment for our Occupational Science minor classes, tabling events at the main USC campus, and many more fun events to promote OT! Having the opportunity to do this has made me even more passionate about my profession! It gets me so excited to talk to others about what OTs do because of the great services that OTs can offer almost everyone! Besides work, it was a great time to get to know the other ambassadors and we have really become a lot closer through our experiences together!
And finally, OT banquet! What a beautiful way to end the semester, year, and OT program — yummy food, great people, fun music and dancing!! Although not everyone in our class could attend, it was a fun night to get together and just relax after our comp exam! We only talked about the exam a little, but we were able to fully enjoy the night anyway, despite not knowing if we had passed yet!
Thank you for reading our blogs! I know the ambassadors next year will do an amazing job to continue what we have been doing! I hope you’ve enjoyed it! =)
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