Student Blog
Life Hacks

Five ways to make the OTD more affordable ⟩
January 23, 2019, by Antonietta

Admissions Life Hacks

Like I mentioned in my previous blog Choosing a Residency Site, off the bat it seems like a USC affiliate site is the best financial package and the whole prospect of affording the OTD without it seems impossible. I’m here to tell you that is not the case! Yes, the OTD at USC is expensive but here are five steps I took to make it more affordable:

1. The most direct one was finding a residency site that hired me on as an occupational therapist once I got my license. I looked at Glassdoor to get a sense of what entry level pay was like and mine is a few dollars lower because of the mentorship and training that I receive. I can cover about 50% of my Fall/Spring tuition (before any scholarship) by completing 20 hours of residency work per week. This percentage will change over the summer when I’m working full time at my residencies.
2. The next one was a question of weighing pros and cons. First the background: in the Master’s you pay a flat rate for 18 units of tuition and for the Doctorate you pay for each unit you take. During the Fall and Spring of the second year of the Master’s you are not required to take the full 18 units and there are opportunities where you could be. In the Fall, you can do Directed Research (OT 590) for 2 units and during the Spring you can load up on elective credits to reach the full 18. Elective credits taken during the Master’s carry over to the Doctorate and if you do the max units both semester you do not need to take any elective during the OTD. This saves you up to 4 units at approximately $1800 per unit. I found 18 units manageable but it was noticeably more work than my classmates who were not doing it . . . so consider that as you plan your semester!
3. There are some paid positions in the Division available only to OTD students. I am the classroom assistant for two courses. Since the professors know that you are also a student in an intensive course of study, I have found they are easy to work with and I can adjust my schedule to manage both these positions and my doctoral work. I personally enjoy being connected back to the Master’s program and working with professors that I was inspired by when I was in their classrooms.
4. Keeping my grades up! There is scholarship from the Division for the OTD based on academic achievement. This includes GPA as well as participation and impact in the Division during the Master’s.
5. Finally, I’ve known since I started the program that I wanted to pursue the OTD, so I did some things to prepare for the expense including working during the Master’s. I picked up 5-7 hours per week and it helped cut down on my expenses during the Master’s which made taking on the financial burden of the additional OTD year slightly less intimidating.

I’m not going to talk about loans or scholarship because it is very similar to the Master’s. There have been some great Ambassador blog posts written about these topics in the past so definitely check those out. I hope that sharing this part of my OTD experience demonstrates that there are ways to make the OTD work financially and for me, it has been worth every penny.

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Spring Schedule: Balancing Class, Work, Extracurriculars ⟩
January 22, 2019, by Serena

Life Hacks

This semester is my last academic semester as an OT Master’s student! The program went by so quickly. Feels like yesterday that I was at the 2017 newly admitted student reception.

In the last semester of the Entry Level Master’s Program, you are required to take a Leadership Capstone and Advanced Seminar in Occupational Science course to hone in on the foundations of OT and OS and what it means to be a leader in the field.

Additionally, you will be given the ability to select from a wide range of of electives where you can focus more on your specific areas of interest such as health and wellness, sensory integration, Spanish medical terminology, acute rehab, hand rehabilitation, motor control, and the list goes on and on. Since my passion is health promotion, behavior change, and lifestyle interventions, I have decided to enroll in Current Applications of Lifestyle Redesign, Optimal Living with Multiple Sclerosis, Therapeutic Communication, and Occupational Therapy in Primary Health Care Environments.

Besides course work, within the USC Chan division I will continue to serve as a Care Team Coordinator for the Student Run Clinic (SRC), and as a member of the Diversity, Access, and Equity (DAE) Committee. Outside the division I will continue to practice yoga, hike, and uphold my role as a member of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) organization working on the behavior change sub-committee.

Balancing all of my passions and interests can be a challenge at times so what do I do to manage?  I participate in a lot of energy restoring activities (e.g., yoga, hiking, meditation) and make sure that all of my extracurriculars are things that I genuinely enjoy and love doing. While in the program there are many ways that you can receive help balancing the two. For instance, the professors embed assignments that focus on helping you achieve a more balanced and healthy life. In addition, there are services (some of which are free) that you can receive as a student where you can get one-on-one attention with an OT who specializes in helping you stay balanced: USC Kortschak Center for Learning and Creativity (KCLC) and the Occupational Therapy Faculty Practice (OTFP).

If any of these courses, extracurriculars, or services interest you, please reach out to me and I would love to tell you more about them or answer any questions you may have.

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Can I do Grad School? ⟩
December 4, 2018, by Joyce

Life Hacks What are OS/OT?

This was a big question that I find many people asking themselves. Whether you’re contemplating graduate school right after undergrad or going back after years of not studying, it seems to be a daunting choice to give up a salary to study full time.

Grad school is truly unique in its own way, way more so than undergrad ever was. From simply a developmental perspective, we are still finding ourselves in undergrad . . . our identity, who we are and what we want to be. However, in grad school you’re one step closer to consolidating the path in which you want to embark on.

Personally, I struggled a lot with low self esteem in college, shape shifting to match the peers around me and truly plagued with the disease to please. It wasn’t until senior year of college where I found comfort in being myself. Chasing after OT only reaffirmed the comfort I found within myself which is why I decided to pursue grad school immediately. I did not want to take a gap year because I was so sure on pursuing OT that I did not want to wait any longer. In that way, because I was used to the flow of school, exams, and papers . . . academically it wasn’t a difficult transition. That being said, it wasn’t an easy social transition. I had to pick up everything I had on the east coast and move to the other side of the country. I was couch hopping the first couple of weeks. I had a two week break between the day of my undergraduate graduation and the beginning of the graduate program. I definitely found myself burnt out many times and questioned whether this was the right choice I made.

But I am a firm believer of finishing what you started. Grad school was daunting at first. You meet many students who are just as passionate as you – which can be inspirational or scary. It is a game of perspective, will you view them as peers to learn from or simply competition to hide from? What’s great about OT school is that the program begins with our faculty encouraging us to learn from each other, to use each other to expand and challenge our clinical reasoning. Reflecting now, I’m glad that I made the choice to come to USC when I did because it gave me the opportunity to make life-long friends and receive strong mentorship with many of the faculty that went through the program themselves.

If you’re hesitating on applying to grad school, I would start with reflecting on why. Is it fear? Fear of school or fear of starting something new? One thing that is for sure is that no one goes through grad school alone, we do it with the support of our friends, professors, and social support!

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Preparing For Finals ⟩
December 3, 2018, by Melissa

Life Hacks

Hey everyone! This semester is quickly coming to an end and I’m in the process of preparing for finals. It’s both an exhausting time and an exciting time, as I am so close to the end of the semester, but I have to get through finals first! Being at this stage made me want to write a bit about my approach to finals, especially with work being factored into my schedule.

First and foremost, organization is KEY. I like to look ahead at my work calendars so that I can schedule different sessions for studying when I’m not in class or at work. I also like to get together with my classmates to study in a group so that they can help keep me accountable. Otherwise, I get sucked into a Netflix binge session that is no good for anyone. Living in downtown also gives me access to lots of cute coffee shops that have great coffee and a cozy ambience that helps me stay focused.

Don’t get me wrong though, finding the motivation to push through to the end of the semester is hard. Senioritis is REAL, and I’m very tired. But that’s why it’s so important to have a good support system, both inside and the outside of the program. I have such a great group of classmates that I’ve met in the program that offer constant support and motivation, and my family and friends outside of the program help me unwind and enjoy the little free time that I have.

Fortunately, I know that I’ll get through this, just as I have gotten through every other set of finals in my academic career. Just stay strong, push through, and remember why you started.

Good luck to everyone going into finals this semester, and fight on!

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Choosing a Residency Site ⟩
November 30, 2018, by Antonietta

Life Hacks

Thinking back to last year and searching for a residency site . . . I’m still overwhelmed! It is such an important part of the OTD experience but with a little bit of reframing it becomes a much more conquerable task, in fact it becomes as an opportunity to achieve some of your goals.

1. First, stop. Take a deep breath. Ok, now . . .
2. Reframe how you’re thinking about the search. This is not fieldwork. Your residency will not be like fieldwork and finding your site will not be like getting assigned a fieldwork placement. In fact, you are 100% in charge!
3. I found it useful to think of the process like a job search. You want to consider the obvious things like the practice area but you have the freedom to include the following in your considerations: the work environment, the length of your commute, the flexibility in the hours you’ll work, and what your pay will be.
4. You will probably have to reach out to more than one site . . . probably more than two . . . I have a friend who approached more than 15. But they found a spot in the advanced practicing setting they wanted and they got it and they’re so excited about it. The leg work was worth it.
5. Remember the timeline for securing a residency. I didn’t start reaching out to sites until the Spring and I did not have mine confirmed until the middle of the Summer. I was too busy early in the second year of the Master’s to tackle the search and I was not put at a disadvantage by waiting until I had time to do it right. You don’t need to have your site confirmed until the beginning of your OTD.
6. Many sites will interview you, take this as an opportunity to interview them right back! This is going to be the place where you blossom from an entry level practitioner to an established therapist. You want to advocate for what you’ll need and make sure the site you’re going for can provide it.
7. Expand your search beyond the USC affiliated sites. These sites are amazing and might seem like an easy fix to all the anxiety about finding a residency . . . but they are not the right fit for everyone. Even if they’re in the practice area or population that you are interested in, the management style or location or required projects might not be right for you. Consider these things and know that there are many other sites available. Another reason people apply exclusively for the USC sites is because of funding. I will write another blog post on this soon, but there are other ways to fund the OTD with a similar financial obligation.
8. Consider all the tracks. I ended up going with the clinical route but I have friends who want to be clinicians but took this opportunity to expand their skills in research or policy and administration. It was not necessarily their original plan but they seized the opportunity offered to them and are learning a lot. An interview with some of them will be available soon, make sure to check it out!
9. Talk to potential faculty mentors. I didn’t come up with my residency structure until I talked to Dr. Blanche about my goals.
10. Claim the experience, decide what you want, and make it work for you. It can be sort of flexible, so mold it. I had two interested (sensory integration and animal assisted therapy) so I’m doing a split residency between two sites. I do 10 hours per week at Therapy West and 10 hours at The Children’s Ranch and this is the right balance for me. This is YOUR residency and you have the power to make it what you need!

I’m happy to talk to anyone who has more questions, please feel free to reach out.

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