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

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 . . .

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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!

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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!

Here’s a picture of me and my awesome group on poster presentation day!

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Mixing it Up! ⟩
January 15, 2014, by Clarissa

Community Getting Involved

The spring semester started a couple of days ago and I can’t believe it’s my last semester in the program! It’s hard to imagine not seeing my classmates every day, some of which have become so dear and special to me. The time has flown by and I’m getting nostalgic already.

The one thing I’ll miss most about USC is the community. Not only have I met those with amazingly compassionate hearts and bright minds in the OT division, I’ve also become acquainted with future colleagues through interdisciplinary interactions. It’s normal for students in any graduate program to feel engrossed in the world of their own discipline — school can be pretty consuming! This is why I appreciate opportunities to interact with students from other schools. Not only is it a great learning opportunity to learn about related professions, which is important to future practice, but it also puts OT’s unique characteristics into perspective.

Last semester, we had several functions where we could mix and mingle with other disciplines, including a mixer with the public health school at a cute little café in downtown LA, another function initiated by the pharmacy school, and several tailgates with physical therapy. The USC chapter of Phi Theta Epsilon, the national honor society of OT, also organized the annual OT/PT Forum where practicing OTs and PTs spoke about patient cases where collaboration was critical. Students of both disciplines were given the opportunity to brainstorm about these cases too. Pretty cool, huh?

Here’s a picture of the OTs with our new public health friends at Eat, Drink, Americano in downtown and of the OTs and PTs putting our minds together at the OT/PT Forum!

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Oh Happy Day! ⟩
December 16, 2013, by Clarissa

Community Getting Involved

I just took my last final today for my Current Issues in Adulthood and Aging class — hip hip hooray! I always have trouble picking from a jillion things to blog about but since it’s a jolly day, I’ll blog about jolly things — the OT Ugly Holiday Sweater Party! As the social chair of OTSC, I always look forward to planning and implementing this event. This event is a young tradition, started only last year, where the students get together and eat, participate in an ugly sweater competition, decorate gingerbread houses and ornaments, and make holiday cards. This year, we held it at the Center for Occupation and Lifestyle Redesign, which is a beautiful Victorian house owned by the USC OS/OT Division. The homey atmosphere, festive decorations, and Christmas tree made the party that much more enjoyable.

It has been so long since we had the opportunity to be creative and do arts and crafts! Participating in crafts reminds me why I so strongly believe in OT — meaningful ways of occupying my time lifts my mood, boost my self-esteem upon product completion, and, since I like doing crafts with other people, increases socialization. Basically, it’s a recipe for well-being. Unfortunately, in the midst of projects, finals, and papers, my creative brain has taken a backseat so it felt great to unwind and create again. On top of that, I was able to catch up with so many classmates and get to know first years. I get lonely with my laptop as my only companion during finals week.

This year, we also teamed up with another student group in our division called Design in Action. They encouraged the students to build gingerbread houses with universal design in mind — they created ramps, grab bars, handrails, and wheelchair accessible doorways. It was a fun way of incorporating some of the principles we learned in class and I loved hearing our classmates’ stories about each house. I was really impressed with some of these houses. Here is the first place winner along with some happy OTs!