Student Blog
What are OS/OT?

Life Rolls On ⟩
September 17, 2012, by Amber

Diversity Getting Involved What are OS/OT?

This weekend I volunteered for a wonderful organization called Life Rolls On. This foundation is near and dear to the heart of my classmate Marisa, and she regularly recruits students from the occupational therapy program to volunteer their time. According to their website, Life Rolls On is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for young people affected by spinal cord injury and utilizes action sports as a platform to demonstrate the infinite possibilities beyond paralysis. More than 1.2 million people in the United States have sustained spinal cord injury and approximately 6 million Americans live with a form of paralysis. A subsidiary of the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, the organization was founded by Jesse Billauer, a professional surfer and motivational speaker who established Life Rolls On after he sustained a spinal cord injury while surfing.

The event this weekend was called They Will Surf Again and took place in La Jolla, just north of San Diego. Approximately 50 individuals of all ages (3-63) with spinal cord injuries became surfers for the day. A team of hundreds of volunteers mobilized to organize the surfers, help them into wetsuits, and take them into the water. The surfboards were adapted with short rails and the surfers lay on their stomachs. A team of volunteers took them dozens of feet offshore and pushed them into perfect waves. It was a sunny day and the conditions were beautiful, so many surfers enjoyed very long rides. It was inspirational to see their accomplishment and a joy to see their faces beaming with excitement.

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What’s Your Profile? ⟩
September 13, 2012, by Ricky

What are OS/OT?

Does it feel really uncomfortable when someone gives you a moderately wet kiss on the cheek? Are you really sensitive to light touch, like if an ant crawls up your leg? Do you get dizzy at Costco? Do you ever question how people could ever study with the TV on? If you’re like me, and answered yes to any (or all) of these, it might be really insightful to complete a Sensory Profile* with your Occupational Therapist. This assessment will help you become more familiar with your sensory preferences, meaning, how your body responds to the various stimuli in the environment. The pediatric version of this tool (Infant/Toddler Sensory Profile) is commonly used by occupational therapists working with children with Autism or other developmental disorders. Many of us have independently figured out strategies to work around/through uncomfortable stimuli, but for some, this might be quite a challenge. Pinpointing these stimuli and our responses to them can lead to optimal strategies. Chances are you may even reveal some uncomfortable stimuli that you never really considered before.

*by Winnie Dunn PhD, OTR, FAOTA | pearsonassessments.com

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Occupations linking us to our heritage ⟩
September 12, 2012, by Kendra

Classes What are OS/OT?

I got married this past August and something that occupied my mind throughout the planning and actual wedding process was the connection to my ancestors and current family I felt by taking part in this long-lived tradition. For the longest time I was a nay-sayer for weddings, I didn’t want to prescribe to antiquated traditions, I envisioned myself a new-age woman, hear me roar! I still am, but I see now why some traditions live for hundreds, thousands of years. Suffice to say, I get why people ‘get married.’ The feeling that I was experiencing the same jitters, excitement, and annoyances that my mother, grandmother, and one day, daughter will experience, made me feel like I was tapping into something far greater and substantial than just one day of celebration.

One of my classes this semester is Health Promotion and Wellness, and the activity we did this week was identifying occupations that are important to us and what values and emotions we instill into them. All I kept thinking about was the connection to the past I feel when engaging in some occupations. Finding this connection allows for greater value and understanding of the process of engaging in occupation. For example, laundry. I avoid doing it until absolutely necessary, but lately when I am folding shirt after shirt after shirt I think of my great-grandmother, whom I never met, but know that she too throughout her lifespan folded clothes, cooked meals, and got married. Suddenly this seemingly mundane task was far more meaningful. Suffice to say, my class has helped me re-think the ‘why’ of engaging in certain activities, allow the why to create meaning and, ideally, change something burdensome into something meaningful.

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Why I Chose OT ⟩
September 7, 2012, by Alisa

What are OS/OT?

I started out on the pre-med track like many others, but I quickly realized that it wasn’t for me. I didn’t enjoy the courses and felt that my classmates were too competitive. I flipped through the USC Catalogue and considered all the majors USC offers. Being that I have many interests, I could only narrow the list of possible majors down to ten majors. I needed advice from someone whom I could trust, so I turned to my pediatrician of twenty years about what careers I should look into. I told him I wanted to be in a helping profession with the lowest stress possible. He suggested I look into occupational therapy (OT) since his wife is an OT (USC graduate, too!). From then on, I joined the Pre-OT Club at school, saw an OT advisor, and even visited the first and most prestigious OT school in Thailand while on vacation (I should add that the person who greeted me got her Doctorate in Occupational Therapy at USC). The more I looked into OT, the more I got into it.

I felt OT was a perfect fit for me because I get bored easily. In OT I know that I am encouraged to use creativity with clients and tailor to their own needs and wants. Each client that I work with will have different stories to tell and come from various backgrounds. As an OT, I will be able to do storymaking with them. I can empower clients to write their own chapters of life filled with meaningful activities of their own choosing. Through my fieldwork experiences, I have worked with newborns in the hospitals to the elderly in a community-based setting. One day I hope to own my own clinic or day program with a built-in yoga studio, so that caregivers can do yoga while waiting for their loved ones getting OT.

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Future Occupations! Meet the Jetsons ⟩
May 7, 2012, by Chris

What are OS/OT?

I’ve spent a great deal of time thinking about the occupations of the future. What kind of sports will we be playing?Where will we eat? What will we be eating? And so on. This got me thinking about how all of our daily occupations will be impacted by a reduction in the NASA budget. The technological advances brought by the necessities of space exploration can have a valuable impact on the world of OT.

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