Student Blog
Beginnings and Endings

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! =)

⋯

Looking Back — Summer 2008 ⟩
March 7, 2010, by Mari

Beginnings and Endings School/Life Balance

When it all began . . .

As we’re nearing the end of our OT school journey, I can’t believe we’ll be graduating so soon — I have mixed feelings of excitement to be done, sadness to leave the comfort of student life, and anxiety about where I’ll end up in the future. I can just remember when I was in the process of applying to OT school and deciding where to go, when I had my weekly email and phone conversations with Sarah Kelly to ask her my list of questions and help with the decision process! It’s definitely true that time sure flies by when you’re having fun! Lately, I’ve been thinking about all the amazing times I’ve had at USC in the past couple years. So, for my next few blogs, I thought I would take you back through my experience as an OT student at USC!

First, we start with the summer of 2008 when we were immersed in what it really meant to be a full-time student! We didn’t know if we were going to make it out of the summer still being able to think and function during our fall semester classes, but of course, it was completely fine!

As we were lined up to go into the auditorium, I’m sure everyone remembers the first people they befriended! For me, it was Wendy and Miriam!

Here’s Wendy and I pretending to be happy right before our Kinesiology final. 😉

Although it was a lot of studying, we definitely found time to have fun too! We love celebrating birthdays!

Here’s Tina blowing out her candles at the Wine & Dine event hosted by the OT House.

And this is a group picture from Miriam’s birthday — we went to a modern-day play of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew and ate at the Tofu House in Korea Town!

We also had fun in Dr. Fazio’s Skills class, which worked out to be the perfect stress reliever from Kinesiology and Neuroscience!

Here’s an angel pot holder that I made from ceramic tiles and grout — probably one of my favorite pieces!

And who knew Neuroscience could be fun too (sorry, Myka — she’s another Student Ambassador who was a Neuroscience major)?! At the end of the summer, I brought in a cake that was in the shape of spinal bone, marking a few of the tracts that ran through it. A little nerdy, I know, but I always think there’s some way to incorporate food into your projects — it just makes it more fun for everyone!

And that’s about it for the first summer. It was definitely a busy summer, but filled with fun as a great start to OT school! =)

⋯

5 weeks closer to graduation . . . ⟩
February 8, 2010, by Michelle

Beginnings and Endings Community

It’s week 5 of the last semester of my master’s. I gotta say it feels good 😊. Even though I still have a couple large hurdles to get through before I actually get to accomplish my dream of having a job and being a “real OT.” At this point I have already started looking online for jobs, and wouldn’t you know that a couple days ago I found an awesome job listing in DC for my dream job.

But now back to life — this past Saturday we had the OT extravaganza. The extravaganza is a chance to celebrate Occupational Therapy! It’s the third time that we’ve had one and except for the rain I think that it was a huge success! Mari, one of the other student ambassadors was responsible for putting the event on and she had asked me and some friends to present a project that we had made last year. Our project was very popular and I enjoyed talking about it so much.

Here’s a picture of my group at the extravaganza.

⋯