Student Blog
What are OS/OT?

Visiting San Luis Obispo ⟩
September 23, 2013, by Jen

Classes What are OS/OT?

This past weekend I took a short break from my life in Los Angeles to visit some friends at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. I graduated from Cal Poly in June 2012 (exactly one week prior to beginning the occupational therapy program at USC) with a BS in Kinesiology and a Minor in Psychology. My visit brought back numerous memories from my undergraduate years and reminded me how much my education at Cal Poly helped me get to where I am today.

As a kinesiology major I took courses such as Biomechanics, Motor Control and Learning, Anatomy, Physiology, Neuroanatomy, Adapted Physical Activity, Psychosocial Aspects of Physical Activity, Gerontology, and Sports Nutrition. When I took each of these courses, I never thought about how much I would be using what I was learning in the future. Let me tell you . . . I’ve been using what I learned a LOT since beginning graduate school. Majoring in kinesiology especially prepared me for the physical rehabilitation aspects of occupational therapy.

As a psychology minor I took courses such as Developmental Psychology, Abnormal Psychology, Behavioral Disorders in Childhood, and Environmental Psychology. What I learned in these courses did a fantastic job of preparing me for the mental health and pediatric aspects of occupational therapy.

I’m so grateful for my undergraduate experience and know what I am learning now in graduate school will be VERY useful when I become an occupational therapist.

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Turning Work Into Play ⟩
September 19, 2013, by Jen

What are OS/OT?

This past week, I had the opportunity to work with children in an occupational therapy clinic setting. I was very impressed with how well the occupational therapists I observed were able to make a treatment session look so much like play. For example, an adorable child was getting occupational therapy services because of a fine motor delay in performing certain tasks that involve small movements with this child’s fingers. This child normally gets very frustrated when performing a task that involves small movements, but one of the goals for therapy is to be able to pick up Cheerios independently. The occupational therapist found a way to make this task fun for the child. The therapist found out what motivates the child and used this to their advantage in order to get the child to participate. This child LOVES the show Blue’s Clues, so the therapist created a Blue’s Clues-themed treatment session that required the child to practice their fine motor skills. The child enjoyed the session and also worked on needed skills!

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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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