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Will I Have Time to Work During the Master’s Program? ⟩
November 4, 2020, by Savi

Classes Getting Involved

As the Nov. 1 application deadline has just passed, I have been receiving many questions from prospective students about balancing a job and graduate school. Although this experience will vary from person to person, I thought it could be helpful to give you all a bit of insight into my experience balancing work and graduate school!

The Entry-Level Professional Master’s program begins with a jampacked 8-week summer semester in which you complete foundation-based courses like Kinesiology and Neuroscience in an extremely short amount of time. This makes for a high intensity and fast-paced semester with class from Monday-Friday 8:00am-4:00pm and a few hours studying upon your return home each afternoon. I, therefore, chose not to work during the first summer. I had also just completed my undergraduate degree a week before beginning the Master’s program and hadn’t even found a place in LA to live yet! I was grateful to have a few hours on the weekend or on Friday evenings to apartment search, find a job for the fall semester in my new neighborhood, and get to know the fun city I was living in.

During my Fall semester in the Mental Health Immersion, I felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I was in class three days a week, completing my Fieldwork I one day a week, and had my Friday’s completely free! This allowed me more time to take on a part-time job as a gym receptionist and sales associate at a gym near my apartment. They allowed me to work extremely flexible hours, as they understood I was not available during most of the week. I worked the evening shift after school one night a week, the Friday afternoon shift, and a weekend shift, which all combined to approximately 20 hours a week of work on top of graduate school. Was this easy? No . . . it was really overwhelming at times and I did not have much time to participate in social or revitalizing occupations (such as sleeping a sufficient amount of hours every night!). I am very thankful that I was able to fit in some studying or homework during my work hours if we were having a slow day, that I loved spending time with my co-workers, and that I was allowed to take a free workout class during each shift. If this wasn’t the case, I do not think I would be able to commit 20+ hours a week to a job while completing my Master’s degree (also I wouldn’t recommend it regardless because it was TOUGH). I continued this workload during the following Spring Semester in the Pediatrics Immersion. It was nice to make some money and work on applicable skillsets for the OT field, such as adjusting your communication style depending on the customer, giving clear and concise directions, or staying organized and calm during chaotic or unforeseen situations.

At the end of my Spring semester, I was exhausted and I needed a change. I knew the Adult Rehabilitation Immersion was coming next and as a student interested in working in an inpatient hospital setting with adults in the future, I wanted to have more time to focus on all the valuable coursework. The Student Ambassador position became available and as a previous college tour guide, I was thrilled by the opportunity to step into a similar role for a program I love dearly. After applying and interviewing, I was lucky enough to be chosen as one of the Student Ambassadors and was extremely thankful for the expectation that we were to work 10 hrs/week. On top of that, working for the Chan Division allows you a lot more flexibility with your hours, as the faculty you are working for understand the workload you are trying to balance. Thank you to Kimberly Kho, our AMAZING supervisor/boss, for being so flexible, understanding, and respectful of our busy and ever-changing graduate school schedules. Kim has always reinforced that academics takes priority and has allowed us to adjust our schedules to provide more time on particular weeks to study for exams, write big papers, etc. Visit Yna’s blog to learn more about what we do as student ambassadors!

From my experiences, you may have noticed a trend. Can you work in grad school . . . yes! It is doable depending on what job it is and how much flexibility it allows you. I am grateful to have had understanding bosses and incredible, fun, and kind co-workers in both of my jobs! Be sure to weigh the pros and cons of the job before you commit to it and make sure that you are prioritizing your physical and mental health! As Kim says . . . you are a student first.

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Life as a Student Worker ⟩
November 2, 2020, by Yna

Classes Getting Involved Videos

“Is it possible to work while studying?” This is one question that frequently comes up and understandably so, given the full-time enrollment and the intensive nature of the academic programs at USC Chan. The answer to this question is yes, it is a possibility for one to work while studying. Although it really depends a lot on the individual, I would say roughly about 10-12 hours per week is recommended. To give you a better idea on how this is dispersed throughout the week, I am going to share with you my typical work-study schedule and some of my duties as a student ambassador.

As a Post-Professional Master’s student, I am currently taking a total of 18 units for this fall semester, comprised of 3 core courses (8 units) and 3 elective courses (10 units). For a better visualization, here’s a table showing how my weekly class schedule looks like.

As you can see, you really only spend a few hours of your day sitting in class. However, do note that for each course, there are out-of-class activities and requirements that need to be worked on, which could take up a substantial portion of your time.

I schedule my work hours as a student ambassador around my class schedule, so I typically work on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays in the morning before my class, totaling to 10 hours per week. One thing that I really like about being a student worker at USC Chan is the flexibility in scheduling that they give students that allow us to move our time around in case we have exams or other requirements to prepare for. This is also made possible by the amazing team of student ambassadors who are always willing to help out whenever one of us is having trouble fulfilling our duties. Our supervisor, Kim, never fails to remind us on every team meeting to prioritize our academics and also take care of our health.

One of my tasks as a student ambassador is to liaise with Global Initiatives for certain projects. This is another area where I find the flexibility in scheduling really helpful, especially for time-sensitive projects, because you can choose to dedicate most of your work time to accomplishing it or even work on the weekend if you’re willing to. For example, for the recent World OT Day last October 27, we created a video that shows how people all over the world have reimagined their doings. Check it out below!

Sometimes, I also give informational presentations together with the admissions team, as part of our role to help raise awareness about occupational therapy and our programs at USC. Other ways we can disseminate information and share our experiences as current students and student workers is by posting to Chan Division social media accounts (check us out on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube!), writing blog posts about our experiences, and answering questions from prospective students. Lastly, student ambassadors also partake in certain steps of the admissions process, with the guidance of our Director of Admissions, Dr. Anvarizadeh.

Hopefully this glance into my life as a student ambassador answers some questions you may have about being a student worker! If you have any questions, you can reach the ambassadors at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

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A HANDful of Fun in Hands Electives ⟩
October 29, 2020, by Liz

Classes What are OS/OT?

The end of the semester is approaching, which means it’ll soon be time to wave goodbye to the best electives ever! Okay, yes I am biased because I really do love hands and hand therapy. I was initially pretty bummed about having to complete these electives via Zoom because I was nervous about not being able to do a lot of hands on work. No pun intended! But, I am happy to say I was proven wrong. I’ve had a blast learning in both OT 573: Hand Rehabilitation and OT 562: Advanced Hand Rehabilitation and Certification (PAMs).

Lisa Deshaies is the instructor for OT 573, and I have learned so much. We’ve learned about the anatomy of the hand, which I have to admit was really intimidating to think about at first! Lisa does a wonderful job of going over the anatomy of the hand and has some wonderful tips on how to remember different parts. In her class we’ve also learned about several different diagnoses, such as osteoarthritis, arthritis, and carpal tunnel syndrome to name a few. We’ve discussed the importance of wound care and the different phases of healing. We’ve talked about different orthoses and have had the opportunity to critically think about which orthosis we would recommend given different client cases. Lisa has shared so many resources with us to continue practicing our knowledge of anatomy and is so patient when explaining different concepts in class. This week we had our first in-person course, where we practiced casting. It was so much fun! I had seen this done at the hand therapy clinic I worked at, and I finally got to try it. Here’s some pictures!

In OT 562 we’ve learned about a multitude of physical agent modalities that may be used in hand therapy practice. We’ve learned about ice/ice massage, hot packs, ultrasound, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS), neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES), paraffin, iontophoresis, and phonophoresis. Aside from learning about the modalities from our instructor, we’ve had a chance to learn from each other. Each student has had a chance to become familiar with one of the modalities I listed and presented during our small groups. We’ve learned about the precautions and contraindications, parameters, and when/why we would use the modality with clients. Dr. Rocker is extremely knowledgeable and has challenged us with multiple case studies that allow for us to critically think about which modality, if any, we would use in different cases. Some of the cases presented in class are cases that Dr. Rocker has seen in practice, which is really cool! We’ve had class on campus to try out ultrasound (sorry, I forgot to take some pictures!). We also had TENS/NMES units mailed to us from the Division, which we’ve had a chance to try out during class. It was a really cool experience to know what the modality feels like, and how it would be beneficial for certain clients. A little class fun this week included dressing up for Halloween. I really appreciated that Dr. Rocker continues to try and make class fun for everyone even though we aren’t on campus as we would usually be.

If you’re as passionate about hands as I am, you’ll definitely get so much out of these two electives. The content is extremely relevant to hand therapy practice. If you’re interested in becoming certified in PAMs, CBOT requires a minimum of 30 educational hours and 240 supervised hours of PAMs training. The PAMs course counts towards 33 educational hours — so, you would be done with that part! All that’s left to worry about is obtaining the direct training in PAMs, which you could start accumulating hours for when out in practice as a certified OT. Pretty awesome!

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Working with Real Clients (not actors) ⟩
October 23, 2020, by Lamoni

Classes

During your time in the Master’s Program and in the Adult Rehabilitation immersion, specifically, you will have several opportunities to work with actors that will serve as your client. This allows you to practice the techniques that your instructors and textbooks have been talking about. It is pretty nerve wrecking in the beginning because you do not want to “mess up.” But this is technically what they are there for. If you do it incorrectly the first, second, third time, it is okay. Each time that you practice, you get closer to using the correct form or using the correct language. The great thing is that the actors give you feedback too! You do not have to wait until your professor comes over. The actors will let you know if your directions were not clear or if your position was awkward and what you should try next time.

While it is great practice to have those actors as clients, it definitely does not compare to working with actual clients. During my Level I fieldwork at a hospital, I was presented with new challenges that I had not thought about. Clients would ask questions that I did not have the answers to, they would get off track and sometimes it was difficult to redirect them, and there were times when they said things that were a cause for worry. However, my clinical instructor was always right there to guide those situations. For the most part, I was observing and taking mental notes.

Due to COVID-19, the structure of the program has changed. Instead of doing my first Level II fieldwork during the summer, I will not be starting until the spring. That means that I went a couple of months without seeing a client (whether real or an actor). I was feeling rusty. However, I have had the perfect opportunity to work in the middle ground during this semester! My elective, Enhancing Motor Control for Occupations, has in-person sessions and involves volunteer clients!

We began this course by discussing what we would cover and how everything would be laid out. The purpose of the course is to provide an in depth understanding of “principles and methods for remediation of motor control problems following upper motor neuron lesions” (OT574 Syllabus, 2020). The perspective of the course is to examine the ways that occupations are impacted for adults with hemiplegia. Our first two classes covered pelvic and trunk assessment, scapular assessment, and shoulder alignment. We had practiced facilitations and mobilizations on our assigned partners which were other students in the class but because everyone had normal strength and movement (and none of us were trained actors), it felt rather . . . easy? It took some time to get the proper form but other than that, the client (ourselves) was simple.

After those first two classes, our volunteer clients arrived! The client that I was assigned to had a much different presentation than my classmate. While my partner is 5’6 and no more than 130 pounds, my client, Chuy, was 6’1 and over 300 pounds. He had a stroke a couple of years ago and presented with left side hemiplegia that caused weakness in his arm and flexion in his hand. He wanted to be able to tie his shoes and zip up his jacket independently. He had very functional goals and it was time to help him achieve them! Our interventions were completed through both in-person and Telehealth sessions. Every week, we had an entire two hours to work with our clients. Afterwards was the lecture portion by our instructor Remy Chu.

The last session with clients ended this week; we wrote discharge notes and gave them home exercise plans. Spending time with clients in this environment was an amazing opportunity. Everything we learned in lecture was being applied on the spot. And none of the clients had to pretend that they had weakness or impaired sensation or limited range of motion because it was actually the case. Therefore, by the end of our time with them, we were able to see real progress! We started and ended our time with clients by recording their movement and the how they performed their goal. We were able to compare them at discharge to how they were at baseline. In our last session which was through Telehealth, Chuy independently tied his shoes and with a big smile, asked “did you see that?!” It was such a rewarding feeling! I almost shed a tear. That feeling is not something that actors can provide. When working with clients, I am constantly reminded of why I chose this field.

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Back To OT School Day ⟩
October 19, 2020, by Calvin

Classes Videos

I hadn’t been back to school since like . . . March, which was around the time when we were all informed that courses were going to be moved online due to the pandemic. Ever since then, I’ve missed being with everyone in person, and I also kind of missed sitting in the classroom and being in that learning space. I’m so thankful that the division is allowing students to go back to class on some days because honestly, there are just some things that are learned better in person!

At first, I was pretty hesitant about going back because of the potential risk, but so far it’s been working out great! We’ve learned to be more flexible in order to adapt to this new learning format, and it feels good to see everyone again. Here’s a video on what my first day back to school looked like!

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