Student Blog
Getting Involved

#AOTA16 — Trojans take on Chicago ⟩
April 15, 2016, by Joe

Community Getting Involved

It’s my favorite time of year!

Last week was the AOTA National Conference in Chicago, IL. This conference is the largest gathering of OT practitioners, researchers, and students in the world, with an estimated attendance of over 10,000 people!

USC Chan is world known for our contributions to research & practice through global leadership and innovation. It’s so exciting to meet Trojan alums who are blazing new trails in OT practice and leading the profession in local, state and national organizations. There were over 100 Trojans speaking at conference, myself included, and several alums receiving prestigious awards such as the AOTA Roster of Fellows Award, and the AOTA-AOTF Presidents’ Award.

As the Chair for AOTA’s Assembly of Student Delegates, I preside over an annual meeting with students from OT & OTA programs across the country.

Aren’t we a fun looking bunch? The Assembly brings the student perspective to AOTA at large, and also acts to bring AOTA initiatives & opportunities to students around the country. There are 3 Trojans on the Assembly Steering Commitee: Myself as the Chair, Ellen Wleklinski MA ’15 and current OTD student as the OT Vice Chair, and Lizzie Peters MA ’16 as the Secretary. We also have 2 USC Student representatives in the photo: Kelsey Peterson, current first-year, and Ann Borreson, current second-year.

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AOTA National Conference Highlights! ⟩
April 14, 2016, by Rashelle

Getting Involved

My first AOTA conference was amazing! While Jodie, Joe and I all attended, we each had very unique experiences.

I volunteered at the welcoming ceremony where I got to walk in the 50+ year members of AOTA. It was an incredible honor, and you should’ve seen my beaming ear to ear grin from behind that sign! It was an incredible feeling to know that in 48 years I could be walking in line with these phenomenally dedicated practitioners.

The USC Trojan Alumni Party is always a great time! This picture shows just some of my 2nd year colleagues that I mingled with surrounded by professors and program graduates.

I was able to see the famous Hull House that we learn so much about through our Foundations of Occupational Therapy course. This is one of the places that cultivated the initial paradigm of healing through occupation!

At the Exhibit Hall I was able to speak with poster presenters, OT companies, and supply vendors! Through the poster presentations I learned about programs being developed all throughout the nation, while networking with practitioners and students with similar interests. As you can tell, there was a lot going on! I loved this because the Expo Hall truly provided a booth that fit everyone’s interest, and room to expand your interests even further!

Attending this conference was only possible through a scholarship that I had acquired through the OT department! I entered a video submission for the OT Extravaganza student video contest and won! Thank you to the OT department for providing me with such a wonderful learning, growing, and meaningful conference experience.

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So close to the finish line! ⟩
April 13, 2016, by Jodie

Community Getting Involved

This month has been filled with many deadlines and celebrations. First and foremost, April is OT Month so we celebrated as a division with our OT Month Kickoff event held at our Health Science Campus. This was a super fun event where we passed out FREE pizza and OT buttons and faculty and students had the chance to socialize and celebrate occupational therapy during lunch!

This past weekend was also AOTA’s national conference in Chicago, which I had the amazing opportunity to attend. I went to numerous short courses and poster presentations and was so inspired by what occupational therapists are doing around the country! I think my favorite thing about attending conferences is being surrounded by people who are equally as passionate about occupational therapy as I am. I felt so inspired by all the presentations and conversations that I had with fellow conference attendees. I am already looking forward to next year’s national conference in Philly!

To top it all off, April happens to be the birth month of my two childhood best friends AND my dad! That being said, I have been very busy planning celebrations for each of them and balancing my time between schoolwork, extracurricular work, family/friend time and “me time”.

I am doing my best to balance my time and to cherish every second of every day in the program. This program really does fly by in the blink of an eye. We are so close to the finish line and I am so excited to see what the future has in store for my classmates and I!!

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Faculty Mixers! ⟩
December 1, 2015, by Rashelle

Community Getting Involved School/Life Balance

This year for the annual faculty/student mixer series, students were invited to partake in fun events organized by our student council professional development chairs. I was fortunate enough to be available to attend all three of them this year!

At the first mixer I got the opportunity to show off my (un)impressive bowling skills with Dr. Myka Persson, a previous professor, Carey Sokol, my past fieldwork coordinator, and Amber Bennett, who coordinated the Career Fair, which I attended the day after. It was awesome to see faculty members in such a fun, informal environment, which really allowed me to get to know them apart from the structured school work and meetings. 

The second faculty/student mixer was held at Urth caffe with Dr. Karrie Kingsley, one of my favorite professors, along with Dr. Tracy Jalaba and Dr. Lindsey Reeves, who recently completed their doctorate degrees at USC’s distinguished Faculty Practice. It was an honor to sit next to them over dinner, and to hear about their captivating journies of how they got to where they are today.

Lastly, after my final day of fieldwork at the Keck Hospital of USC, I got to celebrate it with, coincidentally, my fieldwork supervisors! Dr. John Margetis and Dr. Kim Lenington are two of USC’s finest clinical faculty, who taught me the ins and outs of how to intensely care for patients in an intensive care unit. If that was too cheesey, it must be from where my mind has drifted after all of those nachos we ate!

These intimate gatherings truly made me feel welcomed into the Trojan Family. Not only will I feel less intimidated when approaching these faculty members in the future, but also I was able to connect with first year students, who may have been intimidated by me! Every day, with every new person I meet, I see how large this network of Trojans is, and how supportive and encouraging they can be as we go through this journey together.

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OTAC and Magic and Rose Floats, Oh My! ⟩
October 28, 2015, by Ariel

Getting Involved What are OS/OT?

Last weekend, I headed to Sacramento for the annual OTAC Conference. This conference, put on by the Occupational Therapy Association of California, is an opportunity for OTs and OT students to spend a weekend immersing themselves in the world of occupational therapy. Through its wide array of courses, symposiums, special speakers, and after hours parties, the OTAC experience always reinvigorates me and adds new perspective to the work we do.

One of my favorite parts of conference this year was listening to the keynote address. Our speaker, Kevin Spencer, gave an impassioned speech about the power of arts-integrated approaches to promote functional and social skills development. His intervention, Healing of Magic, uses the act of learning and teaching magic tricks to help patients regain lost physical skills while increasing motivational levels and self esteem. His unique intervention is a testament to the level of creativity that occupational therapists can incorporate into their interventions!

Check out this video of Kevin Spencer doing his thing!

Another awesome part of conference was participating in USC’s efforts to get Occupational Therapy a float in this year’s Rose Parade! During some down time, my classmates and I filmed an Ice-bucket-challenge-inspired video, in which we informed the public of our campaign, which will help support OT’s Centennial Vision of getting occupational therapy widely recognized and globally connected. We’ve pledged, as a department, to donate $2,017 to forward our goal. And we’ve challenged Boston University to do the same. Let the OT Rose Parade Challenge BEGIN!

When we weren’t at conference, my friends and I took advantage of Sacramento and the fall season by visiting a pumpkin patch! As someone who had never been to one before, I didn’t know what to expect. To our surprise, we found a sensory experience on our adventure we hadn’t even expected — A CORN PIT!!! As future occupational therapists, we hopped right in!

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