Student Blog
Getting Involved

Afternoon Tea with a Scholar ⟩
September 28, 2011, by Floyd

Getting Involved

What a wonderful Sunday spent with good people, delicious food, and thoughtful reflection on who we are and what are to become. During this afternoon, I got to nibble on a variety of delightful summer and spring salads and scrumptious little desserts, while sipping an assortment of lemonades and iced teas.

I got to hear about the advocacy opportunities that OTAC (Occupational Therapy Association of California) representatives and lobbyists had when they were at Capitol Hill in Sacramento. They spoke to many city and state officials like Senator Barbara Boxer about the implementation of bills and regulations that assure integrity of occupational therapy practice in California. This makes me proud to be an OTAC member because I know that they are doing their best to fight for my rights as an Occupational Therapist and protect my profession for the future.

The most inspiring of all was our keynote speaker, Dr. Florence Clark. She spoke to us about empowering ourselves by embracing the integrity that we developed through our lived experiences and to speak up for what we believe in, no matter what. She gave a personal example our how she was negatively depicted because of her unconventional but groundbreaking research (the USC Well Elderly Study) during the late ‘90s. She tells us that we must relinquish the conformity that society has portrayed us over the years and be active agents in our own learning and path as great practitioners. We are sleeping giants, and it’s time for us to wake up and be the change we want to see in the world.

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Summit on Autism ⟩
September 21, 2011, by Floyd

Getting Involved What are OS/OT?

On Saturday, I went to an amazing event at UC Irvine’s Bren Events Center for KiDA’s (Kids Institute for Development and Advancement) third annual Summit on Autism where First Lady Rosalyn Carter was the keynote speaker. I learned about the newest technologies that parents and therapists can use to support their child’s learning, such as iPAD apps for kids. I also got to learn about the newest research on the vast amount of treatments and the resources that families can utilize. This was a great learning opportunity for me because I got to understand more about Autism, its impact on the family, and the positive effects of family involvement.

First Lady Rosalyn Carter, a national advocate for mental health and caregivers, founded the Carter Center’s Mental Health Task Force — a board of experts and consumers that advocate for positive change in the mental health field. She spoke about her past experiences as an advocate for mental health and how it is in our reach in ending the mental health crisis.

One very cool study that I got to learn about was about a couple that set up digital cameras in every room of their home and recorded 24 hours a day of their child’s development from birth to the age of 3. By using different movement and voice recognition systems, they were able to map out what words or babble their child said and where and what time it happened. This way, they were able to figure out what environment stimulated the most words and what the child was doing to develop his or her language. Obviously, this is still taking them some time to gather all the information because it is over 26,000 hours of film that they have to go through. Best of luck to them!

Here’s a pic of me tabling and telling everyone about the great opportunities there is at USC’s Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy!

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OTSC Elections and Tailgate ⟩
September 14, 2011, by Chris

Getting Involved

The elections for the first year positions on the Occupational Therapy and Science Council are being held this week.

The first year students had an amazing turnout with over 20 candidates being nominated for positions on the student council. The voting will close later in the week, but I have no doubt that all of the choices would be valuable assets to the council. The student council is also putting on a tailgate/mixer for the first and second year students to get to know each other.

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AOTA National Conference ⟩
April 22, 2011, by Yao

Getting Involved

A quick journey from a project at USC all the way to a national conference with over 50 other schools and countless practitioners.

Just last week I was in Philadelphia presenting a poster on a project that I had the opportunity to develop in our OT skills 3 class, but now I am back into the grind, with 3 weeks left until graduation. For the first time during my graduate school experience, I am finally beginning to understand and really feel how invaluable these past two years at USC have been.

It’s been a process, really. My road to realizing the opportunities that the occupational therapy community at USC has to offer started last June, when a classmate and I decided to take the skills 3 class project that we started in January 2010 and engage in an independent study elective with a faculty advisor. The process has been trying, and I was re-acquainted with the importance of time management. But all of our hard work culminated last week: In addition to receiving constant mentorship from various faculty members and access to departmental resources (e.g., poster production), we were both chosen to receive two of this year’s departmental scholarships to travel and present in Philadelphia during the national occupational therapy conference. Then came the day that we had to leave for Philadelphia, both faculty and students had talked about the hope and encouragement that everyone feels at the conference. This was going to be the first time that I stepped out into the OT world with more than 50 other OT schools gathering the knowledge that our peers and tenured members had to offer.

Seeing the amount of OTs in one place and seeing the welcome signs everywhere in Philadelphia with AOTA’s brand all over was inspiring. Throughout the conference we received the opportunity to talk and mingle with our fellow students and leaders in the profession. Never in one place have I seen so many people together with the same background working towards the same goal, the Centennial Vision. All of our two years of schooling has come to this; it has been to prepare us to work with and discuss our ideas and hopes for the future of our profession. We were taught to find resources within our own profession, find ways to access resources outside, and more importantly, to think beyond what is happening now. AOTA allowed for everyone to come together and discuss ideas, and with that opportunity I realized what USC has taught us. They have bestowed on us the ability to analyze a situation, organize, formulate, and articulate our ideas. But most importantly, they have taught us to not be afraid to begin a discussion that may lead to further action and not be afraid to collaborate. USC has educated us to appreciate OT for all it is and has helped us mold how we want to become as a practitioner and a leader in the profession. In the words of Dr. Clark we are a pixel in the whole picture that we know of OT, working together with other professionals across the nation to make OT a clearer picture for everyone.

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Engage ⟩
March 27, 2011, by Austen

Community Getting Involved

Every Thursday evening, the OT house hosts a weekly program called Engage. We pick up kids in the neighborhood, bring them back to the OT House, help them with their homework, engage in a group activity, eat dinner together, then take the kids home. It is such a fun and rewarding experience right down the hall from me!

I have always loved giving back to the community. Feeling part of it, learning from it, improving it, making a difference. Engage has been my weekly contribution. However, it is not just to the community, but to the lives of those children. I love being part of the group of OT students who serve as mentors and friends, promoting the importance of doing well in school, setting goals, and working hard. I truly enjoy being a role model and setting a positive example for them to look up to. In this day and age, there are so many distractions that can get kids in trouble. Engage is a way to help keep focus and priorities among our youth, keeping them excited about school and their futures.

My favorite activity we have done so far was planting vegetables and herbs in the large planting boxes on our patio at the OT House. The kids had a great time organizing the planters, spacing out the seeds, placing the seeds in the soil, and labeling each row. As the weeks have gone by, the veggies and herbs have grown so much that the kids get to see the results of something they did together. That was a great activity, promoting team work, collaboration, community building, taking turns, and sustainability.

As the school year starts winding down, we have just a few weeks left of Engage. Since I will not be here next year, it will be very sad to have to say goodbye to the kids that come every week who I have developed relationships with. It has been such a joy watching them grow over this past year, and I know they will continue to grow up into wonderful people. I just hope they have gotten as much out of the program as I have.

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