Student Blog
Life Hacks

Tips & Tricks for Undergraduates! ⟩
July 29, 2016, by Megan

Getting Involved Life Hacks School/Life Balance

While walking across campus last week, I ran into some of the new Bachelor’s to Master’s OT students who were attending their Freshman Orientation. It was so exciting to learn a bit about the newest members of the OT/Trojan family and SO crazy to think that I was in their shoes less than a year ago! This run-in also inspired my next blog post — some Tips & Tricks for those interested in undergraduate life here at USC!

Although the majority of OT students at USC are applying to the Entry-Level Master’s Program, we also have the Bachelor’s to Master’s program in which students are immersed in the occupational therapy profession throughout their undergraduate experience. Because students start this program as freshmen, they are often overwhelmed with both excitement and uncertainty regarding the transition. A lot of the questions prospective undergraduate students ask me about this program are ones that I, myself remember laboring over as well. “What will my undergrad coursework be like as an OT major?” “What can I get involved in?” “How can I prepare?!”

In the hopes of easing some of these concerns, I have compiled a list of of advice I learned over my freshman year at USC — as well as an inside look into undergrad student life!
                                                                                                             
TIP #1 Get Involved!
The Involvement Fair and Service Opportunity Fair are two great ways to learn about different organizations on campus. These events provide great insight into the mission of each group and ensure that you see all of the (many) clubs and various groups that USC has to offer. I found that these fairs allowed for me to find organizations I was truly passionate about — and may have otherwise of missed out on!

The opportunities available to you vary from service organizations, to on-campus jobs, to sororities/fraternities, to religious and cultural organizations . . . and on and on — USC has it all! Check out campusactivities.usc.edu to see some of the available opportunities on campus!

TIP #2 Take care of yourself!
Try not to spread yourself too thin!! USC does offer a plethora of ways to get involved, but don’t feel pressured to join every group on campus! The first few weeks on campus can be a little overwhelming — I would recommend taking your time to find organizations you are truly passionate about and really devoting your time to those groups! Make sure to sleep, eat nourishing food, and take time to relax!

Which brings me to my next tip . . .

TIP #3 Hand Sanitizer!
It is so easy to get sick while living and working around so many new people. Try and avoid germs by keeping your hands clean . . . and, again, try to SLEEP enough!

Tip #4 Get to know your professors!
This especially applies to OT professors and faculty members! We are fortunate to have nearly 100 OT faculty members, each one of them with a rich knowledge about the field and a passion for helping you be the best OT you can be! Office hours are a great way to meet with professors one-on-one and ask specific questions. Try and take advantage of these opportunities, I promise your professors won’t bite 😊

TIP #5 Don’t Stress — Everything will work out!
Now I will admit that I am someone who often stresses out over the smallest of things . . . however, I wish I could go back and tell myself to not be so worried about everything! Whether you worry your favorite classes will fill up, that your roommate won’t shower daily, or even that you might sleep through your first class — I urge you not to panic! If there is one thing I can say, it is that everything will work out! Besides, as OT students, we are great are coming up with creative solutions to any problem we encounter, right?! 😉

Tip #6 HAVE FUN!
At USC, the students value hard work and devotion to academic success, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t know how to unwind and have fun! From football games, to the beach, to quirky cafes, to scenic hikes — there is always something to do in LA!

And here is a sneak peek into living on campus and a typical freshman schedule!

Undergraduate life at USC is jam-packed with excitement and endless opportunity . . . and it is such an amazing time to develop a passion for OT! Hopefully this post helps to paint a better picture of life as a USC OT undergraduate. Have a great weekend, everyone!!

⋯

Next Steps . . . ⟩
May 9, 2016, by Joe

Beginnings and Endings Getting Involved Life Hacks School/Life Balance

So, here we are, final blog post. I graduate in FOUR DAYS! (WOO!)

I’ve had the most incredible and transformative journey. I pivoted from one career path to come into the OT profession, initially aimed at going into physical rehab, then every semester showed me a new side of OT which flipped my world upside down. Now at the end of my final semester, I find myself interested in bridging between physical rehab and mental health practice, with a touch of primary care. And with one more fieldwork to go, I wonder how my interests will change by the time I take the board exam.

USC Chan has given me more than just clinical skills, but personal and professional life skills as well. If it wasn’t for the tremendous mentorship I received from our stellar faculty, I would not have become so involved with AOTA, which has opened incredible leadership opportunities and experiences, like attending conference to speak in front of hundreds of people, and even representing the OT profession at physical therapy’s national student conclave. Looking back, I can’t believe how much has happened in 2 years. it’s all just flown by!

So, what’s next?

I’ll be at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in their outpatient mental health programs. This includes working with teenagers with behavioral health problems, adults with special needs, and refugees for community integration. I’m SO excited to get started, and looking forward to being back on the east coast. I’m still waiting to hear from residency placements, but I expect to be back in the fall for the OTD program . . . with how much has happened in these last 2 years, who knows what that year of mentorship will bring as I’ll be a fully licensed occupational therapist!

For those of you just beginning your OT journey, some tips:

1. Get to know your faculty! I remember right at the beginning of the program, Dr. Samia Rafeedie, Director of the Professional Program, said simply: “you’re a student for now, but I see you all as future colleagues,” which really set the tone for the relationships we should develop with our faculty. I’ve made it a point to meet with each of my professors one-on-one at least once per semester. They have invaluable insight and expertise, and their input has been so crucial to my personal growth and success in the program. Make the effort, it’s well worth it! (And don’t worry, they’re all friendly and warm, they’re OTs!)

2. Learn through experience! Our classes are great at setting your foundation for clinical reasoning and developing hard clinical skills through fieldwork, but there is so much more to learn about yourself both personally and professionally through extracurricular experiences. Go to all the seminars, guest lectures, presentations, and the myriad opportunities available to you throughout your time in the program. I’ve continued to learn new skills through some unexpected ways, such as meditation training through my volunteer work with the health promotion office, and presentation skills through my work as an ambassador.

3. Get involved with our professional associations! I cannot stress this enough! Being a part of the OT profession means being a member of your professional associations at the state and national level. Not only do they act as your professional insurance to protect the work we do as OTs, but there are really great opportunities for learning and networking. Which leads me to:

3.5. Go to conferences! They’re super fun, but also give you a chance to feel part of the greater OT community. Go to the mixers and networking events, attend sessions of interest — I’ve made so many good friends from attending conferences. That’s where I meet the OTs who have similar interests as me, and who have offered invaluable advice going through the process. While there are lots of conference and symposium opportunities, attending at least once AOTA national conference is a must!

And finally, 4. RELAX. It’s easy to get caught up in the stress and workload of school, but remember to take time to take care of yourself. We talk about balance a lot as OTs, make sure to apply that to yourself. Keep up with leisure and recreational activities, make time for friends and family, and give yourself permission to enjoy a delicious meal and a good night’s rest.

Ok, one more — 4.5. Celebrate your successes! You’re going to work hard, savor the fruits of that labor!

Oh, and always . . . FIGHT ON!

⋯

Spring is HERE! ⟩
February 16, 2016, by Ariel

Life Hacks Living in LA

It’s February! Los Angeles is looking B-E-A-utiful, with 80-degree weather on the regular and spring flowers already making an appearance. The beaches are beckoning and everyone is gearing up for spring break.

When I first moved to Los Angeles to start OT school at USC, I had no idea what I was in for — although parts of LA are quite urban, there are lots of not-so-hidden gems to explore outdoors in Southern California that help offset some of the cons (ahem-traffic-ahem). Here are a few of my favorites:

The Beaches
Okay, so this one is pretty obvious. LA is known for its beaches, which are some of my favorite features of this area, by far. They’re great for decompressing after full-time fieldwork week, bonfire-ing with fellow trojans from the health science disciplines, and surfing (for therapeutic purposes or otherwise!).

The Hiking
With beautiful weather comes opportunities to get out and explore the trails. LA is home to some great hikes!

The Gardens
A post like this would be incomplete without a nod to the many stunning gardens LA boasts.

As Rachel Carson reminds us in Silent Spring, “Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. . . . There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.”

To anyone considering a move to Los Angeles, I encourage you to check out some of these stunning spots, and expect to see many more!

⋯

“‘Enough’ is a feast” — On Cultivating Gratitude ⟩
November 30, 2015, by Ariel

Classes Life Hacks

Seeing as Thanksgiving just passed, I feel this is the perfect opportunity to talk about gratitude. A lot of us have been hearing about gratitude since we were kids. It’s the kind of thing our parents always reminded us to have when we didn’t want to eat our vegetables: “You should be grateful for these vegetables — there are starving children in _(fill in third world country here)_ who have nothing at all!”

Parental chiding aside, it’s amazing how the concept of being grateful — and our relationship to it — can change so much over time. My family participates in the common Thanksgiving tradition of going around the table and reflecting on what we are grateful for. As a kid, I usually said something along the lines of being happy I had finally gotten a Tamagotchi (’90s kids, remember those?) or maybe that I had earned an “A-” on my (dreaded) algebra test.

But this year, as I sat at my grandmother’s dining table full of food, friends, and family, I realized that as the years have churned on, the things I’ve found myself truly thankful for have become simpler and simpler: the ability to breathe, to see, to hear, to read . . . the capacity to love deeply, fail astoundingly, and the ability to let myself lean into vulnerability in the truest sense.

And while I am happy that I get to pursue my chosen career at one of the finest institutions in the country (Fight On!), and wake up every morning in a comfortable bed knowing I have food in my refrigerator for breakfast, I realized something a little more “meta” this year: I am most grateful for our ability as humans to cultivate gratitude itself (grateful for gratitude, if you will). If we couldn’t, where would we be?

In our course this semester entitled “Health Promotion and Wellness,” we’ve been talking a lot about gratitude and its role in happiness and mental well-being. Cultivating gratitude is a scientifically-backed concept that we as occupational therapists can use with our patients. We learned how doing so has been proven time and again to enhance subjective and psychological well-being.

. . . Speaking of which, have I mentioned how lucky I feel to have stumbled upon occupational therapy? Finding a career that will allow me to go home every single day knowing I’ve made some kind of an impact, whether large or small, is one of the coolest things I could possibly have imagined doing with my life.

And with that, I will leave you with a quote, written by Helen Keller, which my professors included in their final lecture.

I wondered how it was possible to walk for an hour through the woods and see nothing of note. I who cannot see find hundreds of things: the delicate symmetry of a leaf, the smooth skin of a silver birch, the rough, shaggy bark of a pine. I who am blind can give one hint to those who see: use your eyes as if tomorrow you will have been stricken blind. Hear the music of voices, the songs of a bird, the mighty strains of an orchestra as if you would be stricken deaf tomorrow. Touch each object as if tomorrow your tactile sense would fail. Smell the perfume of flowers, taste with relish each morsel, as if tomorrow you could never taste or smell again. Make the most of every sense. Glory in all the facets and pleasures and beauty which the world reveals to you.
— Helen Keller

⋯

An Autumnal Occupation ⟩
October 4, 2015, by Heather

Life Hacks

The Fall season is absolutely my favorite time of year. It reminds me of the times when my grandma and I would partake in one of our favorite occupations: making pomegranate jelly.

During October and November, I would go over to her house almost every weekend to make our wonderful creation. The process was long, yet meditative. First, we would pick the pomegranates off of the tree. Bags and bags of them. Then, we would sit for 2-3 hours seeding the pomegranates in tubs of water. By doing this in water, the seeds were prone to loosen and break out of their membrane without squirting everywhere. From here, my grandma would juice the seeds to make pomegranate juice (remember, this was before POM juice was a thing). The rest of the process involved adding sugar, pectin, and acid to balance out the thickening action of the pectin. The sugar was integral to the recipe because it increased the volume of the juice, sweetened it, and helped to prevent the jelly from fermenting. The last step was to pour the jelly concoction into sanitized Mason Jars, stir the contents to eliminate air bubbles, and skim the foam off the surface.

Grandma always told me that pomegranates were healthy, but I never quite understood why. Just recently, I did some research to find out their health benefits. Some of the interesting facts that I discovered were that pomegranates contain high levels of vitamin C and many types of antioxidants, namely 3: anthocyanidins: cyaniding, delphinidin, and pelargonidin. The polyphenol context is 3X the amount found in green tea and red wine. Studies show that they are directly related to the prevention of cancer and heart disease prevention

The occupation of making pomegranate jelly has been very important to me throughout my youth and young adulthood. After my grandma passed away, my mom and I have continued to engage in the ritual every Fall season. I believe that every life has meaningful occupations like this one, and that it is worthy task to continue practicing them throughout our lives.

⋯