Student Blog
Life Hacks

Meaningful Occupations in the Reinberg-Rivera-Ritter Household ⟩
November 12, 2020, by Liz

Life Hacks Living in LA

As OT students it’s so easy to get caught up with work, class assignments, and other responsibilities. It’s so easy that we forget how important it is to take care of ourselves and take some time to engage in meaningful occupations! This year I have had the pleasure of living with two of my best friends, Lorelei and Renee. Over the course of being in this program, we’ve really gotten to know each other. I don’t know what I would do without them! I thought it would be cool to share some pictures of some of the meaningful occupations we’ve been engaging in to relieve some stress and spend some time together as a family.

Renee just recently got a sewing machine, and so of course Lorelei put her to work! Here she is attempting to professionally hem Lorelei’s skirt. So yes, we now have our very own seamstress in the house! The only downside is that her work may take more than 10 business days to complete.

As a kid, I used to love playing outside with my friends. Whenever I think about my childhood I think about running around the apartment complex and racing around in scooters with my friends. My elementary school used to have a thing called AR (not sure if that is still a thing), in which we would have to accumulate a certain number of points by reading books. I really did not like reading books as a kid because I loved being outside playing with my neighbors. As I got older reading became more enjoyable of course. So, now I have decided to read the entire Harry Potter series, which I never read as a kid!

Here’s Renee taking a little study break. We started working on a 1,000 piece puzzle as a household, but I have to admit most of the work was done by Lorelei and Renee. There are way too many shades of blue, green, and white in there. I did cheer them on from the couch, though!

One of the most beautiful parts of living in East Los Angeles — delicious food everywhere! I woke up early before class to buy us some tamales so we could enjoy a little breakfast. Yum!

And lastly, here we are enjoying a little paint night! Lorelei was painting something for her mom, I was painting a gift for my little sister’s birthday, and Renee was painting something for her room. We were playing holiday music because both Renee and Lorelei will be going back to the east coast for the holidays. And Maxy is supervising of course.

These pictures bring me so much joy! I am so lucky to have the best roomies in the world. As an OT student in our program you can expect to receive a great education and learn from some of the best OTs out there. But, you can also expect to develop beautiful friendships with some amazing people!

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My Support System ⟩
October 26, 2020, by Daniel

Diversity Life Hacks

This past week I received the best news ever, “WE” passed the NBCOT exam! The reason I say “WE” is because I attribute every big accomplishment to my support system. Yes, they will always say that I’m the one that put in the work but I feel that my accomplishments are and always will be a collective effort. Where I come from, it often takes a village to do what very few have done before. This past weekend made me reflect back on my support system and their unconditional love and support. I have been fortunate to have people in my corner every step of the way. Being the first person in my family to go to college came with a set of challenges that at times felt unmanageable. From thinking college wasn’t an option in high school to now being in the OTD Program it has been a long journey to say the least. Last Wednesday, when I opened that email with the NBCOT score, I felt a sense of relief as well as gratitude because I know what it took for me to get here, to be one huge step closer to being a fully licensed OT. This is much bigger than me because it goes back to the hardships my parents and my community have faced.

There have been moments in the last couple weeks when I felt defeated while taking classes, completing my residency, going through life, and studying for the NBCOT. It is in these moments that it helps to lean on your support system. Whether that is your family, significant other, friends, classmates, mentors, school organization, etc., it is good to know that there is someone there for you. Having people checking in on me, giving me good vibes, and understanding that I had to spend almost every day studying helped me get closer to the finish line. Sometimes a quick encouraging text can go a long way for someone. And I think this has been the theme of my entire college career, having people that cared enough to make sure I was doing okay mentally, emotionally, and physically. Today I want to simply thank every single person that has made an impact on my journey. The list is too big to add on here today but you know who you are.

This year has been such a unique year as we had to completely change our lives. It has been a year of ups and downs, and times full of uncertainty. All of this plus the responsibilities we still have on a daily basis can make anyone feel overwhelmed. If you ever feel like you are just drowning in school work and other responsibilities, take a moment to reflect on how far you have come. Remember those long nights when you used to have conversations with your loved ones about going to OT school and now you’re here. Hold on to those moments and use them when times get tough. When things don’t go your way, take time to feel those emotions, heal, and when you’re ready get back to it because there is always more than one path. Know that regardless of the outcome your support system, your village, your people, will be there to help you get back on your feet. They will not judge you, and instead will respect you and care for you. Now more than ever it is important to stay connected to your support system. Spend time with those people, whether that is in person, FaceTime, Zoom, whatever way you can. One thing I have learned is that accomplishments always feel best when you can share them with the people that were there along the way. Lastly, take all those lessons you learned along the way and support others.

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Finding Faculty Mentorship ⟩
October 5, 2020, by Calvin

Life Hacks

Having come from a large public university for my undergrad, I didn’t feel like it was as accessible to connect with professors and find that kind of professional mentorship. So once I got into this program, I was surprised to discover how available and how approachable the faculty truly are. There is an exceptional range of faculty and, although they may have a ton of things on their plate, I’ve found that something they all have in common is that their doors are always open to students.

However, while I am grateful to be able to call some of the faculty my mentors, I definitely remember how nerve-wracking it was to step outside of my comfort zone to reach out to them. Towards the beginning, I had these thoughts of, “should I only be talking to the professors that teach my classes?”, “what do I even say to them . . . .”, and “will it look like I’m kissing up?” I know that it feels like there’s a lot of pressure to fully use the resources available at USC Chan, so I want to share some information on how I established mentorship and some overall tips and advice for all of you trying to move forward in this process!

Trust in the process:

• I know that, even after hearing how friendly the faculty may be, they still might seem a little out of reach and maybe even scary to get in touch with, especially with those that don’t teach your courses. I felt the same way, and I would always think that I would be wasting their time if I asked to talk to them about their experiences, interests, life, etc. But speaking from experience of going through this process, just know that they’re here for you, they feel for you, and they really are open to being reached out to if you ever need anything.

They’ve been in your shoes before:

• Before, it had never occurred to me to think about how the faculty here were students too. Well, they were! Some of them are actually alumni of USC Chan, and so they know a thing or two about the classes we’ve taken, the practice areas we might be interested in, and the challenges we’ve gone through to get here. The faculty are people too, and they know what we’ve gone through and will go through, so don’t be afraid to get in contact with them because they might be able to relate and give you some pointers along the way.

Do your research:

• Go onto the Faculty Directory page and do some exploring! There’s also a dropdown menu that can guide you to a specific group of faculty. We have faculty that have a range of various experiences and expertise, so take some time looking over their biographies, research interests, and interests in general. You never know what you might be able to find! If someone doesn’t teach any of your classes, don’t let that stop you from reaching out to them. Maybe someone conducts research that you find fascinating or maybe someone is an alum from your previous school! Have fun with this experience because it’s like a little sneak-peek into each of the faculty here!

Just hit the send button:

• I remember when I was way too nervous to even send an email to them. I really just wanted to introduce myself, share why I’m interested in their work, and learn more about how they got to where they are. However, I was afraid of the chance that they might not respond or that they might be annoyed that I’m bothering them. But I realized that there is nothing to lose! If they don’t respond, then follow-up with them. Faculty get a mass amount of emails every day, so sometimes things get lost in the flood. If you think they’re not interested, then maybe it’s not a good fit or maybe you can ask to talk with them over a Zoom call/in-person (once we can do that again). Sometimes it’s hard to analyze someone’s attitude over an email and the faculty are busy people too. It might be that they don’t have time to respond or to write out a thorough email, so give them some time and check-in as needed.

Know what you want:

• What qualities are you looking for in a mentor? Do you want someone to help with your professional development? Do you want someone to just have chill conversations with? What about both? It’s okay if the first faculty that you interact with doesn’t automatically feel like a mentor for you. The process takes time! As much as you want to find the right fit, the faculty also want to see if you’re the right fit for them. So, before you reach out to someone, you should at least have some idea of who they are and what they do, as well as what you want out of the mentorship experience. This is so that you and the faculty can picture what the potential mentorship could look like. Also, with all that being said, you aren’t limited to just one faculty mentor; you are free to build these relationships with as many faculty as you want! Just continue to remind yourself why you’re searching for mentorship and be realistic with your expectations.

Benefits of mentorship:

• I’ve found that my faculty mentors have provided me with different, but strong benefits. Some provide me with affirmations to my skills, some are just nice to have casual conversations with, and some are really good at being real with me and keeping me in check! Having faculty mentors can serve as a resource in terms of networking opportunities and letters of recommendation. Mentorship can also come in all kinds of capacities ranging from consistent weekly/monthly check-ins or even just a few times a semester. As a mentee, I want to be able to provide mutual benefit by supporting my mentor and being there for them as well. I also want to pay this mentorship forward by continuing to support prospective students and current students. I’m super lucky to have been able to build this kind of relationship with some of the faculty here and it’s comforting to know that I can always reach out to these people, even after graduating from this program.

It kind of just happens:

• You’re probably wondering: “What’s the step-by-step process to establishing a mentor?”, and what I’ll say is that it’s pretty fluid. The program does set up an actual faculty advisor program by splitting up students into groups and placing them with one faculty advisor per group. The idea is that your faculty advisor may help you to identify and connect with faculty mentors throughout your relationship with them and they can direct you to other resources, as needed. In terms of seeking out a faculty mentor on your own, it’s not really like a “can you be my faculty mentor?” situation. It’s more so just getting in touch with faculty, gradually getting to know each other, sharing experiences, even working together on projects, and so on. I like to think of it as more of a friendship because it kind of just happens as you get to know and interact with them more and more!

Being in graduate school has really made me appreciate the tight-knit community and intimate interactions with faculty. I hope that this gives you some insight into how to get started in establishing faculty mentor relationships. I also hope that this makes the experience seem a little less scary! I tried to be as real as possible so that I could give you all the information that I wish I had when I was in this process. Feel free to reach out to me at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) if you need anything and good luck!

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Put Tracking Apps to the Test ⟩
September 30, 2020, by Bethany

Classes Life Hacks

In OT 563: Occupational Therapy in Primary Healthcare Environments, Dr. Valasek gave us an assignment. In primary care (and other OT environments), we may assign our clients a log to learn more about their lives and what affects their occupations, so we as students have to complete a log for ourselves. We get to better understand our practice, not just by practicing, but by experiencing what we may ask our clients to do. Dr. V let us know that we had to track for a week, but she was giving us two weeks to complete the assignment, helping us to understand that some weeks are just not good weeks to have to be responsible for tracking. She was also very helpful in permitting a variety of things that we could track (from mood to food) and in suggesting a variety of methods in which to complete this log. Beyond paper tracking methods, there are a surprising number of phone apps to track things and give reminders for goals, too! Daylio can be used for mood and habit tracking. Anxiety Tracker tracks . . . well . . . anxiety, if you hadn’t guessed. Habit Bull keeps you on track for habits. Lose It! can be used to track food and calories. And there are many more! I decided to check out Lose It! Let’s see how this goes . . .

Monday, Day 1
Today was spent familiarizing myself with the app. When you type in a food to Lose It!, there are so many options, it’s overwhelming. At the same time, I’m glad that they give options for things. I feel like I’d be even more stressed if I chose to do my own paper trackers and hand to configure ingredients and calorie count by myself. Or I’d get lazy and go back to fill in previous days’ meals without remembering exactly what I ate. I’m curious to see if I like the apps enough to keep going after this week.

Tuesday, Day 2
I didn’t eat lunch. I felt lazy about wanting to log food, got distracted by a letter my cousin sent me, and just ended up doing other things during my break. It makes me wonder if food logging accurately portrays what I eat in a week, but at the same time, part of logging is to bring the user’s awareness to their own situation and behaviors, so maybe I’m learning that I eat too much . . . hmmm. The funniest part of today was trying to recognize some of the Chinese food names in English. I had fun estimating dinner portion sizes with my mom, guessing if the amount of rice I ate was one cup or two thirds of a cup. My mom is a physician, so it was fun to hear that Lose It! is one of the apps that she recommends to her patients! She gets to learn a little bit more about it this week, too.

Wednesday, Day 3
I found what I like best about Lose It! You can scan barcodes on foods and it automatically inputs the food, the calories, everything! I tried it on my cereal in the morning, and it was almost more tempting to eat things out of the box, instead of homemade meals. Then, that evening, I discovered the recipe option! You can input all of the ingredients in a dish, put how many portions it makes, and it calculates everything for you. You can also save the recipe, so if it is a dish you make often, it is easy to go back and select. I asked my dad what went into his delicious eggplant dish, got an accurate calorie count for my meal and the recipe for a dish I love. I guess it takes longer than I thought to become accustomed to all of the characteristics of an app, and there are more helpful features than I imagined.

Thursday, Day 4
Today was easier. I got more into the habit of logging food right before I ate it. I also realized that previous meals pop up to make selection of eating leftovers easier. I noticed that the app also has water tracking, which I would love to use, but I don’t think I want to pay for the upgrade. The one downside of today is that Lose It! has me on a schedule with a calorie limit, and I really want brick toast. (If you look up “Oh My Pan!” you can find a very good visual example of my food craving for the day.)

Friday, Day 5
This was the first day I went over my calorie limit. Wow. That little red mark telling me I did something wrong was quite disheartening. I needed a reminder from someone close to me that food tracking is not always perfectly accurate, and that it is okay to have a cheat day. You have to take in the weekly budget numbers, too, and there is a lot more to account for in life that affects what you eat. In the end, I decided to let the app help me be aware of what I was eating, but not kill the vibe. And what can I say: The In-n-Out was worth it.

Saturday, Day 6
Tracking three meals a day has almost become habit. I also liked that I can input the exercise I completed for the day, and it goes into the net calorie count. It’s difficult to estimate calories burned from exercise, but it’s kind of nice to know that you can input that information. No crazy new discoveries on the app today. I’m looking forward to seeing how the week fills out.

Sunday, Day 7
Today my mom asked me, “Are you done tracking yet?” She wanted me to eat cookies with her for dessert. I can definitely see how this may be a downside to using a tracking app. It can affect even social aspects of life! But in the end, I think it’s kind of fun to be able to have more of an awareness of what I’m taking in. And I think I’ll continue to use the app, even if I track less regularly or even if I’m a little inaccurate, the most important thing is that it helps me become more aware of my own health.

I truly enjoy learning about the need for and the implementation of occupational therapy in primary care, and this class has definitely brought some unique learning experiences. I’m excited to keep learning about this area of OT and to keep building skills that I can use in the future.

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Studying for the NBCOT! ⟩
September 28, 2020, by Daniel

Life Hacks

The last couple of weeks have been busy, to say the least. The start of OTD residency, having class, and studying for the NBCOT exam have filled up my entire schedule. I would be lying if I said it’s been easy. There are days when I don’t even want to look at another paper of information after a long day of residency. Usually, I find myself studying 3-5 hours per day after 5PM, depending on how busy the week is. I have given myself about 6 weeks to study and will soon be sitting for the exam in 2 weeks! There are many challenges that I have faced with studying, and one of the challenges I want to share with you all is NBCOT study resources and tips to hopefully make your preparation a little better when the time comes for you to take this exam. 

Study Tips

1. Choosing study materials that work for you
Everyone has a different learning style and there are a lot of options to choose from. This can be overwhelming because study materials cost money and you want to make sure you are getting what you need to pass this exam! I consider myself more of a visual learner and below I share the resources that worked for me.

• AOTA NBCOT Prep
  This has been my main study resource as it includes PDFs for OT topics that may be on the exam. This also offers hundreds of practice questions and clinical simulations which are super helpful. Each question provides a rationale for the correct answer and the incorrect answers. The rationales are the most valuable component because it has helped improve my clinical reasoning.
• NBCOT Study Pack
  Personally, I have found these practice questions the most challenging, but that has helped me problem solve and understand how to answer questions. Most importantly, it includes practice exams with a time limit similar to the actual NBCOT, providing a score at the end to see where you are at. This study pack also includes flashcards and matching games to practice different topics.
• TherapyEd
  This book has a lot of information, so it could be overwhelming at times. However, it includes many exam hints, testing tips, and rationales to help you prepare. It also includes practice exams and clinical simulations.
• OT Miri (free)
  This has been one of my favorite study methods because Miri helps you understand concepts in a very fun way! She uses lots of visuals, mnemonics, and helps you apply the information into your personal life. Her style has helped me apply the information in a way that text may not be able to. She is also very honest about her experience studying for the NBCOT, not passing, and then re-taking the exam.
• OT Rex (free)
  This is a great video resource to learn topics in a very concise manner. The OT that makes these videos is great at organizing all of the information into one piece of paper that you can follow along and copy it for yourself to study.
• OT Exam Prepper (free)
  This podcast helps you learn mnemonics and find fun ways to help remember important concepts that you may need to know for the NBCOT. His examples include using Harry Potter, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, etc. He also provides handouts with all the information to help you study!
• OT Exam Audio (free)
  This podcast is another option to listen and review important concepts. My personal preference is listening to this podcast while running.

2. Create a schedule
Creating a schedule to follow was really helpful for me in order to keep myself accountable. As you begin to plan your own schedule, you will find many templates from friends or online to help you study. This will depend on your study style, study materials, and study time. You can always modify an existing schedule and apply it to meet your needs. Below is a sample of the study schedule I used. This is a modified version of a template one of my classmates sent me.

3. Maintain a positive attitude/mindset
Build a positive mindset and attitude when preparing for the NBCOT exam. Yes, it is probably one of the most important exams of your life! And the thought of not passing comes to mind and you don’t want to even imagine that feeling. But, you have not taken the exam and you are doing the best you can to prepare! Finding ways to OT yourself and address this thinking pattern will be beneficial. Don’t let this exam defeat you before you even take it. Remember, you got into OT school, you have learned so much, and you have been able to make it this far. YOU have made this possible! Focus on the things you can control, prepare, put in the work, and remember that YOU are more than capable of passing this exam.

4. Take breaks
There are going to be many times when you may not have time to study, you may not feel motivated, or simply feel over it. In order to balance this time and take care of your mental health, make sure you take breaks! Whether this is exercising, watching a show, getting some food, find ways to treat yourself. YOU are working hard and doing the best you can.

“We are not perfect human beings, nor do we have to pretend to be, but it is necessary for us to be the best version of ourselves we can be.” — Satsuki Shibuya

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