Student Blog
Community

USC OTs in Vegas! ⟩
February 14, 2014, by Clarissa

Community Living in LA School/Life Balance

As promised, I’m updating about USC OT’s annual Vegas trip!  As the second year social chair of the Occupational Therapy and Science Council (OTSC), I planned our trip with my first year co-chair Kristin. The planning process started 2 months before our trip and, let me tell you, coordinating for 30 people isn’t easy but it was all so worth it!

We got rooms all on the same floor, which was great for meeting up before heading out to the clubs. With the excellent girl to guy ratio in our classes, we had no trouble getting into the nightclubs XS and Light for free on both Friday and Saturday nights. During our down time, some of our classmates went hiking (much admiration to them), ate delicious food at the Wynn buffet, and just slept in preparation for the coming night’s festivities.

It was such a fun trip, filled with late night bonding time, pillow fights, 5-hour meals at buffets, a legendary story with a wheelchair and transfer involved, and dancing!

My favorite part of being social chair is having events like this to get to know my classmates outside of class and also to build a relationship with the first years! Making these memories with my peers makes me love my time in the program that much more. OTs are such a fun crowd!

Here’s a picture of a group of us the second night!

⋯

Enjoying my peeps!!! ⟩
February 6, 2014, by Ryan

Beginnings and Endings Community School/Life Balance

I am starting to realize that these will be my last moments with my classmates that I love so dearly . . . so I have been taking advantage and spending some quality time with my peeps! I feel so lucky that I am going to be an OT soon, that I got into USC (which has inspired me to everyday), and to have been in the program with the most amazing people! I have made great friends and am so proud of the amazing OTs my classmates will become. I will miss them so terrible when we graduate.

Went golfing with some peeps, yesterday . . .

⋯

The Olympics Are Here! ⟩
February 5, 2014, by Kate

Community School/Life Balance

As of tomorrow night, the 2014 Winter Olympics have begun and I am SO EXCITED!!! I love sports competitions, and I love everything the Olympics stands for. I feel as if people from so many different races, cultures and backgrounds come together with a common goal: to represent their country and do the best they can. The Opening Ceremonies are one of the most magical events to watch because you can see this pride on the faces of all the athletes who come to compete. The Winter Olympics mean so much to me too, since I grew up in Colorado! I always wanted to be an Olympic-level ski racer, and I watched U.S. skiing greats like Picabo Street and Johnny Mosely when they both won Olympic Gold. Furthermore, one of my favorite movies of all time is Cool Runnings, the classic tale of the Jamaican bobsled team that went to the Calgary Olympics. Well, good news for me — the Jamaican’s are once again sending a bobsled team to the Olympics!!

I’m planning to watch the Opening Ceremonies tomorrow night with some friends and show my pride for Team USA!

⋯

I love Kate Holford!!! ⟩
January 30, 2014, by Ryan

Community

Well, we are on our third week of classes and I feel like I have adjusted to school now. Getting into the groove with lots of reading, projects forming, etc. So I would like to take some time to talk about my love for my fellow ambassador Kate Holford. I, of course, appreciate my whole ambassador team. Everyone is so wonderfully unique which makes us a great team! But for Kate Holford, we have worked together majority of the time last semester and we were in the same cohort as well (meaning we shared a lot of our core classes together). We have been through a lot together and have become so close while adventuring into the new position of Student Ambassador as well as coming to the end of our program. We helped create an Instagram account for the division and have participated in adding photos each week, check it out if you haven’t already!!! It gives you a peek of what we do day-to-day. This all is in addition to the occasional girl talk and dancing in the office. Thank you Kate for always listening, giving me such great advice and being so supportive! I love you!

⋯

Tai Chi and (Chai) Tea ⟩
January 23, 2014, by Clarissa

Classes Community Diversity What are OS/OT?

This morning, I saw a group of older adults practicing Tai Chi in a park nearby my house and I felt so happy! Why, you ask? I took a class last semester geared towards creating a community project. My group members and I interviewed experts, talked to community members, and designed a program for (you guessed it) Tai Chi!

Older adults are often at risk for falls and social isolation. In our research regarding Tai Chi, we found evidence in the literature supporting Tai Chi’s positive effects on fall prevention in older adults — it helps with factors contributing to falls like balance, coordination, and fear of falling. To address fall risk and social isolation, we decided to write a proposal for creating a Tai Chi class followed by time to socialize with tea. The social relationships built through tea time could also motivate the older adults to join our class.

We decided our target population would be older adults in Monterey Park, a city just east of downtown LA. The city has a 66.9% Asian population. In our research, we also found that Asians were less likely to talk about their lifestyle to their health providers so they may have needs that aren’t being met. The cultural familiarity of Tai Chi (and the tea!) may work to encourage their attendance to our program.

To explain the title of this blog post — my group really wanted to name our project Tai Chi and Chai Tea but had to very sadly let go of it. Chai tea’s sugar content may not be the best for older adults. The title lives on here. Woohoo!

⋯