Student Blog
Getting Involved

Friday Quicktakes ⟩
October 24, 2014, by Claire

Classes Getting Involved

Happy Friday!

Today I wanted to share some snippets about my week, so here are a few photos.

This past weekend was OTAC! So great to see our faculty and alumni win awards, give presentations, and participate in the learning/networking experience! In the student track, we got to play with some toys and make our own for pediatrics OT!

Also, here’s a shout out to Rob, one of our former student ambassadors (transformed into Rose King in support of our 2017 OT Centennial Vision float!) and Caitlin, also an occupational therapy student in the USC program!

This week, our adult rehabilitation class did an activity analysis activity. Our team was assigned to do an activity analysis on “making a snack.” We shared a lot of different yummy ideas, perused Pinterest, and decided to make some Jack-O-Lantern quesadillas to reflect our Halloween spirit!

Did you know our classroom walls are actually giant white boards? We were practicing goal writing and developing treatment plans; our teams put all our ideas on the board and our professor gave us feedback. I secretly hope someone will come into our classrooms and leave beautiful drawings one day, like these.

Have a good weekend! 😊

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OTAC Conference ⟩
October 22, 2014, by Bindi

Getting Involved

USC has been so good to the MA1s, they recently sponsored us to attend two days of OTAC conference in Pasadena. Thank you Dr. Blanche for making it happen.

We attended the student track and it was very informative. There was a large focus on fine motor activities, traumatic brain injury and recovery and my favourite was a presentation on coaching a student with autism. Our very own Dr. Samia Rafeedie was a super star and everybody loved her presentation. Students sitting next to me asked if I went to USC and when I said yes, they expressed how lucky we are to have her as a lecturer! It was amazing seeing how many presenters in student track were from USC — either alumni or faculty.

The sessions were great, but what really had me excited was the keynote address from Dr. Michael Iwama, the founder of the Kawa (river) Model. He gave a powerful and entertaining address, I was amazed by how he understood cultural diversity and how difficult it can be to generalize an OT model/approach universally. I experienced this first hand when I was doing my bachelors of occupational therapy in small university town in South India called Manipal, and later when I started practicing in Kenya.

Besides the academic benefits we thoroughly enjoyed the exhibit hall with all the pens, sticky notes, stress balls and other cool stuff we gathered. My classmate Disha won an iPod from UCLA Health and I won a spa voucher!! Yaaay!

Freebies aside, we managed to get a lot of information about the different jobs available out there for us as OTs, and it was comforting to know as international students that there were very many companies that sponsor the work visa we will require after the OPT period is done. We also walked around and explored a very tiny part of Pasadena and appreciated the picturesque area by taking lots of selfies and hoping to get some of the beautiful architecture in the background.

Lets keep the profession moving forward and sharing the knowledge!

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Dr. Michael Iwama and the Kawa Model ⟩
October 22, 2014, by Brenda

Getting Involved What are OS/OT?

This past weekend, I attended the 2014 OTAC Conference and this year it was held in Pasadena, CA. One of the biggest highlights from this event was meeting Dr. Michael Iwama! I was star struck to say the least. Fortunately, he made himself very available to everyone who wanted to speak with him and I was even able to take a picture with him.

Here at USC, we familiarize ourselves with his work during the Spring semester of our first year of the program. One of our readings for the Clinical Reasoning Class includes his article Toward culturally relevant epistemologies in occupational therapy. In this article, he argues that in order to develop into a service that universally benefits all, we must strive for more culturally, relevant epistemologies, theories, and practice methods. He developed a conceptual model of practice that is known as the Kawa (River) Model. The Kawa Model uses Eastern philosophical views and perspectives to help view human occupation in a slightly different way from our Western common discourse. In order to transcend cultural boundaries, Dr. Iwama uses the metaphor of a river to illustrate a person’s subjective views of self, of well-being, and the meanings of occupations. With this concept, he encourages us to look at what the client perceives as personal assets, problems and circumstances in their lives, all of these representing different elements found in a river. As occupational therapists, Dr. Iwama states that we can focus on the spaces found in each client’s unique river and can view these as potential channels to increase the client’s flow through occupations. From this view, we become the people that enable the life-flow of our patients; another thing to add to my definition of occupational therapy!

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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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Be Involved in Professional Organizations! ⟩
October 10, 2014, by Kristy

Getting Involved

Why you might ask? Being a member of both your national and state level professional associations is just one way to advocate for the field of occupational therapy. As students in the USC Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, we are encouraged to be members of both the American Occupational Therapy Association and the Occupational Therapy Association of California. As members, we have many opportunities to connect and network with other occupational therapists in the field, as well as collaborate on our ideas. Read on to learn a bit more about each organization, and check out their websites as they have useful information regarding the field of occupational therapy for you to explore as prospective students and future occupational therapists!

The American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) is the professional association for the field of occupational therapy. The mission statement for The American Occupational Therapy Association is to “advance the quality, availability, use, and support of occupational therapy through standard-setting, advocacy, education, and research on behalf of its members and the public.” AOTA represents the interests and concerns of practitioners and students in order to provide the best occupational therapy services possible.

The Occupational Therapy Association of California (OTAC) is the professional association for the State of California. Their mission statement is to “serve, support, and promote the profession of occupational therapy and its practitioners.” As a member of OTAC, you can promote, advocate and serve as a leader within the field of occupational therapy. Coming up next week is the 2014 Annual Conference for OTAC. This is a great opportunity to network and learn more about what is currently going on in the field of occupational therapy. The conference occurs over several days and includes workshops, poster presentations, exhibits, and a feature presenter. I will be attending the conference this year and am very excited for a fun-filled weekend of occupational therapy. Stay tuned for updates on the conference and my experience there!

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