Student Blog
School/Life Balance

End of First Semester! ⟩
December 14, 2014, by Bindi

Living in LA School/Life Balance

The last few weeks of the end of the semester was a busy busy time! Hence I apologize for the late blogging. It was assignments, presentations, exams, and paper submissions in a random and recurrent order until the last day! What a relief that day was.

Of course the completion of my first semester called for a celebration and as a foreigner in America I had to do the Cheesecake Factory at a fancy mall ☺. I thoroughly enjoyed the food and a scrumptious pecan pumpkin cheesecake. 

The day after finals most people sleep in, but then again I am not most people! I woke up early to study again for my Californian driving test, which didn’t happen due to several reasons that I shall not dwell upon. Followed by running around town completing errands such as returning borrowed books.

Friday evening was well spent at the San Antonio Winery (another first) for our Recruitment/Admissions Team holiday dinner. It was a wonderful laughter filled dinner with all the student ambassadors and Sarah Kelly, Helen Mirsaeidi, Liz Carley and Kim Kelton! We exchanged gifts, and our most memorable and funny moments of this semester.

It has been a special semester for me and USC and LA has exceeded my expectations! It’s the holidays and I am in Summerville / Charleston, South Carolina with the only and very special family I have in America, with the promise of putting on weight and recharging to fight on harder in the next and sighhh . . . my last semester.

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Coming to your Senses ⟩
October 23, 2014, by Jonathan

Life Hacks School/Life Balance

Hello everyone! Hope that you’re all doing great! Things have definitely been picking up as we’ve just reached the halfway point in the semester. From full time fieldwork, to the OTAC conference, to midterms, to planning events for OT Global Day of Service, and everything in between, I’ve definitely been keeping busy! With that said, it’s especially during times like these that I try to really focus on maintaining balance in my life, by making sure that I am making time for the things that are particularly meaningful for me. It’s funny, the other day while I was on a run, I was thinking about the things that I do in my life, and the commonality amongst my occupations. In doing so, it made me recollect to a self discovery I realized in my mental health Immersion — I engage in occupations that provide a lot of stimulation to my senses! A couple weeks ago, Brenda had walked into the office and told me that she had just completed the Adult Sensory Profile in her mental health immersion. For those of you that don’t know, the Adult Sensory Profile is a self questionnaire that uses Dunn’s Model of Sensory Processing to help you discover your own sensory profile, and how this processing pattern affects functional performance. Dunn’s model is divided into four sensory profiles: low registration, sensory seeking, sensory sensitivity, and sensation avoiding.

After Brenda had told me about that she had completed the profile, it made me reminisce about when I had completed the profile last spring semester during my mental health immersion. Based on the questionnaire, I ended up discovering that my profile is sensory seeking. The following are characteristics of someone who is sensation seeking: enjoys sensory rich environments, creates sensation, and has behavioral responses to counteract a high sensory threshold. All of a sudden, a lot of the things I do in my life made sense . . .

from my love of being in the water

to my obsession with food

to my passion for music

to how I run, mainly for own therapy

to being consumed by my own wanderlust

All these things and more are bounded by one commonality: I am constantly seeking sensation in my environment. It’s funny how the self-reflective nature of OT school brings so many things together in your own life. Which prompts the question . . . are your own occupations satisfying your sensory needs?

With that said, have a sensational weekend everyone. 😉

— Jon

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Stress Overload! ⟩
October 16, 2014, by Kristy

Fieldwork Getting Involved School/Life Balance

Recently we had to write a paper for one of our courses, Health Promotion and Wellness. It essentially required us to look at our own lives, and be our own OT! It is amazing to me that even though we learn all of this great knowledge in the classroom and apply it to our patients, we rarely have time to apply it to ourselves. I chose to discuss my stress experience and come up with a way to better manage my stress. Why am I so stressed you might ask? Sometimes it is difficult to manage my time as a student, worker, friend, and a person! One thing that is wonderful about USC is that we have so many opportunities to be involved, but for someone like me, I tend to be overly involved and love to do EVERYTHING. We have several student organizations and groups on campus, there are many opportunities to volunteer, and many educational conferences or workshops to attend. Some student organizations include the Occupational Therapy and Science Council or Student Run Clinic. This weekend I will be attending the Occupational Therapy Association of California annual conference, and upcoming in the next month I will be going to the OT/PT Forum and the Student Run Clinic Symposium. I love learning as much as I can about the field of occupational therapy as well as advocating for the field. Another thing that has been going on this week is Fieldwork! All week! This is one of my favorite times of the semester because we do not go to our regular scheduled classes, but instead we attend our fieldwork all week so we can really immerse ourselves and see what it is like to be there full-time. I am currently at an outpatient occupational therapy clinic, primarily focusing on hand rehabilitation. It is a really interesting experience, and I have a lot to learn! There are surprisingly a lot of things that could happen to just your hands, wrist, or elbow! As someone who has come into the program wanting to work in pediatrics, this really opened my eyes to another venue of occupational therapy, and who knows, one day maybe I would end up in a setting like this! This goes to show you the importance of engaging in our fieldwork experiences and taking advantage of the learning process. By the end of the program, I will be placed in 5 different settings. And this is still only a small sample of the many areas that you can work in as an occupational therapist!

Oh, and don’t worry about me and my stress level, I have come up with strategies to manage my stress. One way I hope to manage my stress is by engaging in some of my old occupations, like playing tennis or figure skating. I can’t wait to start incorporating these activities into my daily routines! And also engaging in some of my newer favorite occupations, like baking, as I type this, I have banana bread baking in the oven! Yum!

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(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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Balancing School and Occupations ⟩
September 8, 2014, by Kristy

Life Hacks School/Life Balance

As I get back into the swing of things with my classes and being at school each day, it is easy to lose sight of the things that mean most to us — our occupations! While being a student certainly is a meaningful activity for me, it is not the only one! It already is proving to be a challenge for me to continue to engage in my favorite occupations such as hiking, baking, playing with my dogs, hanging out with friends, watching movies, and exercising. Our occupations can have an impact on our health and well-being in our daily lives as well as how we feel physically, emotionally, or socially. Therefore, it is very important to be able to self-reflect on what makes us happy or satisfied each day. I know that if I do not take time to spend with my dogs each day, I feel unsatisfied with my day, that is why each morning before I leave for school and each evening we go for long walks; this is not optional for me, it is something of importance that keeps me going, so I have learned to prioritize my time, and it kills two birds with one stone — spending time with my dogs and exercising! Time is a balancing act, we never feel as if we have enough time, although really it is all about how we perceive our time and how well we use our time. Time management as a student is extremely important. I have learned this over the years, and while I feel I manage my time well, I never understood the importance of continuing to engage in occupations until I started the OT program last summer. It pays to pay attention in school, don’t just sit by and learn about how we can help others engage in their occupations, help yourself! Do not let yourself forget what means most to you! Yes being a student is important, but taking care of yourself is necessary as well. I encourage you all to make it a point this week to engage in activities that are meaningful to you!

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