Student Blog
What are OS/OT?

Trojans Talk OT ⟩
September 14, 2013, by Rob

Getting Involved What are OS/OT?

I’ve heard it said there are opportunities for everyone in occupational therapy. At the very least, there is room to make your own path. My background is in communications and I spent four years working as a fishing reporter before I switched to occupational therapy. The “why” of that is a story for a different time.

I wanted to do something related to journalism as an occupational therapy student, so I started a podcast through the Division. What began as one interview with Dr. Samia Rafeedie, a passionate and dedicated professor I had in my first course at USC, quickly turned into a multi-student effort with a page on the Division website.

Fellow Trojan Alyssa Concha is now heading up the Trojans Talk OT podcast and together with a few other students, we will be presenting our work in a poster presentation at the Occupational Therapy Association of California’s yearly conference next month. I am proud of how far things have come, from those inauspicious beginnings as a fresh-faced first-year with my reporter’s microphone.

My current in-progress project focuses on the mental health arena of occupational therapy. I wanted to explore what seems to be a great need for OT, both in the community and hospital settings, and get student, instructor and practitioner input. I completed one interview over the summer and have an interview scheduled for Monday. After that, I get to give myself a crash-course review of audio-editing software so I can turn the recordings into the finished product that will grace the website later this month.

Visit the Trojans Talk OT podcast page.

Send us an e-mail at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) if you want to get involved with the podcast or have an idea for a future episode.

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Play for Pediatrics ⟩
September 6, 2013, by Jen

Classes Fieldwork What are OS/OT?

Babies, babies, babies! I love how “hands-on” my professors make learning. This semester, nine hours of my school week are dedicated to pediatrics classes and an entire day each week I will be spending doing fieldwork (hands-on experience) in a pediatric clinic. Six of the nine hours of class are spent in a lecture course, with the remaining three hours in lab. This week in lab, our class walked across campus to the USC childcare center to observe infants, toddlers and preschoolers. I spent the majority of my time in the toddler room and those little ones were quite the entertainers. In lecture this week we had been learning about normal vs. abnormal child development, so observing children in their natural environment in lab really helped solidify the content we had been learning. After observing the children, we walked back to class and performed assessments of the children based on our observations. We compared our results and it was exciting to see how accurate we were!

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A great way to start the year ⟩
September 5, 2013, by Rob

Classes Community What are OS/OT?

One of my favorite parts about attending the program here at USC is the tremendous diversity that can be found amongst the 100-something people in each class. From dancers and gourmet chefs to artist and musicians, each of us possess some unique background unrelated to occupational therapy that we can bring to the profession and each other.

This past weekend was a perfect example. Over the summer, I had the opportunity to be a Classroom Assistant for the incoming first-years in both Kinesiology and Neuroscience. Donna was a student in my Neuroscience lab, who I could tell had a lot of creativity and ideas floating around in her head. She invited me to a special event she was having at her house last Saturday. She wanted to build a ramp that would help one of her classmates who rides in an electric wheelchair get up the two cement steps on her front porch. That way, if they wanted to hang out or have a study group, there would be no accessibility issues.

Donna recruited over a dozen of her classmates to help and it turned into one of the highlights of my summer. With a background in art, carpentry and design, Donna was able to facilitate the whole affair, teaching everyone tool safety as well as the practical aspects of creating a ramp. People that had never used a drill or saw were cutting wood, snapping chalk lines, and laying screws along a straight edge. It was a beautiful sight.

Everyone brought food and we feasted all afternoon. Then, after successfully testing the ramp and decorating it in Trojan colors, we were all able to finally go inside for ice cream. At the end, we had a jam session with a few of the many instruments Donna has collected over her years as a musician. I left with a feeling of fullness from a job well done (or maybe it was the massive amounts of potstickers, watermelon, and brownies I ate!) and people well met that I’ve experienced more as an OT student than I have in a lifetime. These are the moments that make our program, and the people in it, so special.

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Week One down . . . 15 more to go! ⟩
September 3, 2013, by Ryan

Fieldwork What are OS/OT?

Last week was our first week back to classes for our fall semester. I cannot believe I am in my second year of OT school at USC and that it has been a year since I started this glorious program. My life is so different from when I started the program. I feel like l look at my life in such a different way and make better choices for myself because of the daily influence of OT. I am so excited for my future in such an amazing, creative, and inspiring career.

So, the summer was a very intense 12 weeks completing my Level II Fieldwork at a Pediatric Sensory Integration OT Clinic (if you haven’t heard of Sensory Integration look it up, it is so fascinating). I was amazed at how much work was involved but I learned SO much from the greatest supervisors (I had two of them, when usually you have one) and I appreciate OT’s even more. Clinical experience is so different than being in class. We talk about it a lot, but until you are really hands on for a good amount of time you just don’t understand it. I really think with this experience under my belt, I am going to get even more out of my classes this semester because I have developed treatment plans, documented notes, and treated clients on my own.

Well, I will keep you posted as the weeks go by . . .

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New beginnings ⟩
May 16, 2013, by Alisa

Beginnings and Endings Fieldwork What are OS/OT?

I can’t believe that I’m writing my last blog. I am graduating tomorrow.

Is this real life? Yes, I tell myself that it is really happening. I’ll be graduating from USC once again, but now, for my Master’s. It seems like yesterday that I was in undergrad, not completely sure what I wanted to do with my life.

I have found a profession that I’m excited to be a part of and that I know I could empower others while empowering myself.

This year has gone by so fast, and as I’m reflecting on the year, I’m actually feeling a bit sad. I have met so many great and genuine people, and I truly believe that in the OT program, I get to interact with those people everyday. I love my professors, I love my classmates, I love my co-workers, I love my friends I love my dogs. What more could I ask for?

I will miss leading tours for prospective students. I will miss the foods and snacks that my classmates bring in to share. I will miss yoga on the lawn during lunch hours. I will miss group projects. I will miss listening and talking to classmates. I will miss the compassion of the people in the program.

But I know those memories don’t have to end as we walk off the graduation stage. We can continue to check in with each other. We have various ways to do that, thanks to social media (I’m still a fan of snail mails). We have created a network of the Trojan family for life, and for that, I am grateful.

With every ending has a new beginning.

Monday I’ll start my last level-II fieldwork at the Veteran’s Hospital for 12 weeks. I’ll be working with people with traumatic brain injury. I’ll be pursuing my clinical doctorate degree in the fall and starting my residency at USC University Center of Excellence in Developmental Disabilities at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles in pediatric mental health. I’m super excited about that as well. Although I don’t have a lot of experience with children, I’m ready to learn. So I’ll be keeping myself busy in the summer and starting to study for the NBCOT exam. Come fall I’ll be a licensed occupational therapist! Woohoo!

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