pgvmartinez
It is high time to CONNECT with other OT students, COLLABORATE for learning and CREATE a lifetime network of OT friends!
This is one out of the four topics to help initiate discussions for OT students worldwide. A new topic will be posted after 2 weeks.
For the first topic "Getting to know you": Feel free to express and introduce yourselves. You can also tell something about your campus atmosphere, OT mentors, program and other person, environment and occupation factors that affect your student role.
To help other students visualize your inputs, you can post images and other multimedia links.
To respond to a post, you can "quote" the post of a student to reply.
You can also "subscribe" to this topic to get notified for new posts and replies.
Hoping for a fun discussion and exchange of OT student profiles! Thank you!
Sincerely,
Pauline Gail Martinez
Faculty Member
Department of Occupational Therapy
University of the Philippines Manila
Maria Nicole Sombillo
Hello! I am Nicole, a 2nd year student from University of the Philippines Manila.
If you have asked me two years ago, I can never imagine myself as an OT. Entering college, BS Occupational Therapy was not my first choice. I prefer Education or Biology. But because of my family's "talks" and decision, I took BS OT.
As I go on through college, I can say that I began to love OT little by little. Obviously at first, I had little knowledge of what an OT can do, but as I go on, I get inspired of what we can do not just for persons with disability, but for others as well. We, too, can touch lives. We encourage them. We EMPOWER them.
I also learned a lot from our professors. I learned to be competent, to be more sensitive, and to be professional. I learned to be more open minded of the issues and debates arising from our course and to think critically before taking sides.
As for my peers, it feels good to have these amazing people who support each other. Every test, project, and exam becomes more bearable and enjoyable knowing that we have each other's backs.
As an OT student, I also learned the concept of Occupational Balance. But I admit, that sometimes, I find it hard to balance my studies, extracurricular activities, and personal and family affairs. I should master better time management and setting of priorities.
As of now, I'm still on the rocky road of becoming an occupational therapist. I sincerely thank my family for the "talks". And yes, I can now envision myself as an OT in the future. 🙂
Emmagrace011
Hi! I'm Emma from Lancashire, UK. I'm just about to start my second year as a part time BSc student at university of Cumbria.
KawJemilyn
Emmagrace011 wroteHi! I'm Emma from Lancashire, UK. I'm just about to start my second year as a part time BSc student at university of Cumbria.
Hi Emma! I'm Jem. Nice to meet you here! 🙂 Hope you can invite your friends to also join this 2-month online forum. We'll talk about 4 different topics about being an OT student.
RachelPerryPeek
Hello everyone 🙂
I'm Rachel and I am just starting my 2nd year at the university of Salford on the occupational therapy course. It's lovely to meet you all and can't wait to get to know everybody! I'm 24 and work Bank as a support worker for young adults and up at a centre which caters for those with learning disabilities. I have a passion for helping people (and talking to people haha) I love to travel and get to know people and I also have penpals from all over the world. I'd say my passion for Occupational Therapy probably lies in mental health... even though I probably know a lot more about learning disabilities.. my last placement in mental health rehab really captured my attention. I think I really struggle with reflection and hope I get better at this as time moves on in my career! Any advice? Well I best stop chatting! Speak soon 🙂
Rose Snook
Hi I'm Rose and I'm just about to start my second year at Coventry University. I'm a mature student and currently I work part time as a Health Care Assistant in a community hospital and a residential home for adults with learning difficulties. I love to help people and really enjoying making a small positive difference in someone's life. I hope to be able to make a bigger contibution when I qualify. I love the holistic whole person perspective that an Occupational therapist uses to support thier client.
K.V.Rivera
RachelPerryPeek wroteHello everyone 🙂
I'm Rachel and I am just starting my 2nd year at the university of Salford on the occupational therapy course. It's lovely to meet you all and can't wait to get to know everybody! I'm 24 and work Bank as a support worker for young adults and up at a centre which caters for those with learning disabilities. I have a passion for helping people (and talking to people haha) I love to travel and get to know people and I also have penpals from all over the world. I'd say my passion for Occupational Therapy probably lies in mental health... even though I probably know a lot more about learning disabilities.. my last placement in mental health rehab really captured my attention. I think I really struggle with reflection and hope I get better at this as time moves on in my career! Any advice? Well I best stop chatting! Speak soon 🙂
Hi Rachel, I’m Keith! I too am a second year student studying at the University of the Philippines Manila. While I myself struggle with reflection, I find that the best way for me is to really try and put myself in other’s situations and just go from there. Hope that this helps and that I could see you in the following weeks when we talk about more topics! 🙂
sdarguson
Rose Snook wroteHi I'm Rose and I'm just about to start my second year at Coventry University. I'm a mature student and currently I work part time as a Health Care Assistant in a community hospital and a residential home for adults with learning difficulties. I love to help people and really enjoying making a small positive difference in someone's life. I hope to be able to make a bigger contibution when I qualify. I love the holistic whole person perspective that an Occupational therapist uses to support thier client.
Hi, Rose! I'm Sophia, but I'm more known as Faye. I'm a second year student at the University of the Philippines Manila. It's very nice to know that you work part time as well! I currently tutor a 7th grader in my hometown while balancing my academics. It's so heartwarming to see people who enjoy making even small positive changes for others.
Being an Occupational Therapy student here in the Philippines is quite... bizzare, i guess. Not a lot of people are familiar with our course, and not everyone understands the importance of it. But i'm also quite positive that soon, it will be better.
actan7
HI! I'm Alexia Tan and I'm a 2nd Year Occupational Therapy student from the University of the Philippines.
When I was HS, I never imagined myself being an Occupational Therapy student. But right now, I honestly can't imagine myself being anything else. I love what I study (even though it can be challenging at times) and I love what the profession stands for. I love how our profession promotes overall health and wellbeing, how it empowers every individual and how it enables the disabled as well.
So a background story on the life of a UP OT student:
Here in UP, our program is notorious for being one of the most toxic programs out there HAHAH. As early as 1st year, our load is pretty heavy already since we have bio subjects. Then come our 2nd year we're expected to have thorough knowledge on the human body (thanks to our Anatomy and Physiology classes) and also knowledge on Occupational Therapy Theories and Human Development. It's very challenging having to juggle all those subjects and making sure that you retain enough knowledge from each one. There are times when the exams for those subjects all happen in the same week and it can be overwhelming but somehow we all manage and make it through (semi) unscathed. We all strive hard to do well on those subjects because we know that those can help us in the future when we treat our patients.
The program is challenging for sure but honestly, none of us in the program can get by without the great support system in our college. Our upper batch OT buddies are always ready to help us out and our professors in the department are approachable and very hands-on when it comes to our learning experience.
In a nutshell: the OT program is very challenging but always rewarding. It's worth it suffering through 4 exams in one week when I know that I won't be the only one in the future that would benefit from what I've learned.
kyla.rocafort
Hello, everyone! I'm Kyla Rocafort, a second year OT student in University of the Philippines-Manila. OT in our school is a 4 year course. As early as our first year, we were already introduced to an OT environment through fieldworks. We visited different clinics to have a glimpse on what an OT does. Some of us were sent to an adult section while others were brought to the pediatric section. I was assigned to the pediatric section, and I was really thankful that I was assigned there because I love interacting with children. While observing the OTs in the clinic, I remembered the time when I was teaching karate to children because we have to adjust by making the drills easier and more feasible for the children to follow and practice. I really had a meaningful experience as I was able to talk too with other OTs about their duties and challenges that they encountered. That two-day observation made me certain that I really want to be an Occupational Therapist in the future.
cetalastas
Hi there! This is Cathy Talastas from the Philippines. I am currently in my 2nd year of studying the course that I never knew that I would love, Occupational Therapy.
Since I was young, I have a goal, which is to help others. This was strengthened when I always see my mom, who is a nurse, taking good care of her patients. With that, my life has always been directed to achieve that goal. So, I took Occupational Therapy as my course because I have seen how wonderfully OTs can change people’s lives. Also, in the Philippines, the number of OTs are remarkably low; thus, a lot of people who are in need of an OT service fail to experience it. With that, I want to help them and give them the service so that I can be a way for them to have quality in life. OTs aim to help other people to function well with their daily activities and to enable people to experience the quality of life.
Even though I am only a 2nd year, the workload that I have is bulky but with perseverance and time management, I am still able to cope with what I am expected to do. Our classrooms are very conducive to learning. The building in our college is very PWD friendly because of its layout and facilities that are accessible for PWD. Since we are only less than 30 in our batch, we have already built a strong friendship with each other. Altogether, we strive to finish everything that we have to and after surviving those tedious weeks, we also have fun and celebrate together. Our professors are very competent and they always share their OT journeys which inspire us to keep continuing what we have started.
cetalastas
RachelPerryPeek wroteHello everyone 🙂
I'm Rachel and I am just starting my 2nd year at the university of Salford on the occupational therapy course. It's lovely to meet you all and can't wait to get to know everybody! I'm 24 and work Bank as a support worker for young adults and up at a centre which caters for those with learning disabilities. I have a passion for helping people (and talking to people haha) I love to travel and get to know people and I also have penpals from all over the world. I'd say my passion for Occupational Therapy probably lies in mental health... even though I probably know a lot more about learning disabilities.. my last placement in mental health rehab really captured my attention. I think I really struggle with reflection and hope I get better at this as time moves on in my career! Any advice? Well I best stop chatting! Speak soon 🙂
Hi Rachel! I'm Cathy, a second-year student at the University of the Philippines. I have never heard any OT yet who's passion lies in mental health. My mom, who is a nurse, has been telling me a lot of things regarding mental health and that made me interested in mental health.With that, I would love to hear your story.
I, myself, also struggle with reflection before but what I have learned in order for us to reflect, we should try to analyze the situation, look at it from different perspectives and consider the lessons that we had from our experiences . That works well with me. Btw, I also love to travel. Hope you consider traveling to the Philippines haha. I look forward to hearing from you!
Byeul
Hi, everyone! I'm Byeul Kim, a second year OT student in the University of the Philippines Manila.
Before entering college, I would here the adults say to pursue something you like in order to love what you'd do in life. I really didn't know what degree to choose. I didn't have a dream course, so to speak. But I've always loved dealing with babies and playing with kids. With little background on the profession, I chose to take OT in my current university. As I go along with my degree, I grow to love how the profession enables people to live and pursue what they want to do. This keeps me going in school, despite the workload in academics. 🙂
Statistically speaking, OT isn't a very well-known profession in our country yet. This affects me in the sense that as a student, it can be challenging to address others on how our profession works. I'd like to say that I'm still in the process of understanding and figuring out how I can explain OT to outsiders in the best way possible. This encourages and drives me to pursue my course, to be able to fully comprehend it and contribute to sharing how it can improve lives. Forums like these are actually a great help for me and other students to better understand and acquire insights from other professionals abroad - to improve our comprehension in our field. With this, I look forward to hearing more from everyone for us to have a stronger relationship in the OT community!
Ivanna Co
Hi! I'm Ivanna, a 2nd year from the University of the Philippines Manila.
I fell in love with Occupational Therapy when I was a 3rd year high school student. An alumna who came to speak in our career symposium is an OT. She explained what OTs do and what tools they used to help their clients. As the OT was (and is) based in a pediatric clinic, I was fascinated to see that she works with toys to help the children improve.
During our fieldwork observation last semester, I was able to meet her again. Although she admitted that the profession was not all rainbows and butterflies, it was also extremely rewarding to see clients improve before her own eyes. All the other OTs I observed had smiles on their faces as they talked about their clients' progress. Upon seeing all these, I realized that I really do want to become an OT.
Even though our curriculum is jam-packed, I would never think of changing my course. I love that we can improve peoples' ways of lives and help them achieve their goals. I want to become an OT that could put a smile on my future clients' faces as well. In addition to that, my blockmates support and de-stress me with all the crazy antics they do (I love you guys so much).
In just a span of 2 years, I was able to learn so much from my professors, blockmates, and my environment. I still have more things to learn, but I will try my best to absorb and apply them for the future. I hope to become an OT that can enable people to achieve something for themselves.
etalas
Good day everyone! I’m Edliz Gale T. Alas, 2nd year student taking up BS Occupational Therapy at the University of the Philippines.
During my childhood, my dream is to become a teacher someday. As time passes by, I realized that teaching is not easy. The first time I decided that I want to be a doctor someday was when we went to a pediatrician for a check-up. First, the beauty of the doctor contributed much to my decision. Next is when I saw her children getting into their car (they are about to go to school) and telling their mom they want some corn and carrot later. I thought that’s super cool because children who want fruits and vegetables are rare. My mother told me that the reason is that they are rich. So I concluded then that doctors are rich and I want to be rich. It was during the start of my teenage years that I became somehow confused. I still want to be a doctor, particularly a pediatrician but it feels like I also want to become an engineer and an accountant. Suddenly, I learned that engineering and accountancy involve lots of mathematics. So, I decided to stick to my dream before, to become a pediatrician since it is more of science. An obstacle entered; there is no single course that I can take for me to become a pediatrician right away which means that I need to take first a pre-med course. I don’t like any one among well-known pre-med courses. I told that to a friend of mine studying BS Nursing at the University of Perpetual Help (one of the universities offering BS OT program in the Philippines) and then she introduced OT to me. She told me that the duty of an OT is to teach people forgotten skills necessary to everyday living. Her example is a grandparent who forgot to use spoon and the role of the OT is to teach him/her how to use spoon. During that time, it feels like that friend was heaven-sent because the way she described OT made me fall in love to the said course. Up to now, nothing has changed, I still love my course.
For me the role of occupational therapy in the Philippines is not only to treat clients who need it but also to enlighten Filipinos’ mind regarding their perspective of others through advocacies. Honestly, it was only when I entered college that I become open-minded. For the past 15 years of my existence, the world for me is just black and white. I judge people and events so easily which most of the time, just worsened the situations. Occupational therapy emphasizes that there is/are reason/s behind everything and we must understand that whether we know the reason or not. Though knowledge on the reason is important, there are times that its mere existence is enough for us to calm first and not judge right away. I believe that occupational therapy gives justice not based on what have you done but based on why you have done it.
Occupational balance is a challenge for an OT student like me who wants to explore other things (besides academics) through different organizations. As of now, I think a balance between my orgs and acads still exists. Honestly speaking, it is not my orgs that reduces my studying time, but my stress relievers. It feels like I’m always stress and therefore, I always need them.
Since our campus is small compared to other UP campuses, the population, as expected, is also small. There are many events when you can interact to other students of different courses so making friends becomes easy. I love my classmates so much because they are always there ready to help and also they are very optimistic all the time. I can say that we are diverse (in nationality 🙂, in capabilities, beliefs, etc.) but in the end, always united. I’m thankful to our professors/instructors/mentors for guiding us in our journey to becoming occupational therapists. Actually each of us has an adviser whom we can talk to regarding everything, related or not to academics.
Rose Snook
Hi it is lovely to hear about all your diffent experiences and perspectives of OT and what motivates you to study our subject. I was wondering how many students are on your respective courses. We have a very large OT student population in Coventry in my first year there were over 180 students on the course. But we only meet as a whole group for lectures the rest of our time we are split into smaller study groups with about 25 members. Each year they mix up the groups so when I go back on the 3rd of October I will be in a new group it will be fun getting to know new people but equally sad not being with my old group who were lovely.
Sam Agura
Rose Snook wroteHi it is lovely to hear about all your diffent experiences and perspectives of OT and what motivates you to study our subject. I was wondering how many students are on your respective courses. We have a very large OT student population in Coventry in my first year there were over 180 students on the course. But we only meet as a whole group for lectures the rest of our time we are split into smaller study groups with about 25 members. Each year they mix up the groups so when I go back on the 3rd of October I will be in a new group it will be fun getting to know new people but equally sad not being with my old group who were lovely.
Hi! I'm Sam Agura, also a second year OT student from the University of the Philippines, Manila. To answer your question, in our school, they usually accept 30 students per year for the OT program. Our school uses a block system and right now in our block, there are 29 of us in our second year. Given the fact that our school only accepts a few students per year, we're a very tightknit group. And since it's a very small group, you can imagine that it's a very welcoming community here.
We are also mixed up on our second year with physical therapy students for some of the major subjects common to both courses. This allows us also to get a glimpse of the other rehabilitation courses like physical therapy and how it is similar or different from our course of study.
Your group seems to be a happy lot too 🙂 It seems fun to be meeting a lot of people every year especially considering how big your population is compared to ours.
Maria Nicole Sombillo
Rose Snook wroteHi it is lovely to hear about all your diffent experiences and perspectives of OT and what motivates you to study our subject. I was wondering how many students are on your respective courses. We have a very large OT student population in Coventry in my first year there were over 180 students on the course. But we only meet as a whole group for lectures the rest of our time we are split into smaller study groups with about 25 members. Each year they mix up the groups so when I go back on the 3rd of October I will be in a new group it will be fun getting to know new people but equally sad not being with my old group who were lovely.
Wow! That looks fun, being able to meet different groups of OT students from time to time! It's also nice to know that you have a large group of OT there, I hope that sometime in the future, here in the Philippines, OT, too will be more widely known and enrolled as a course 🙂
Maria Nicole Sombillo
RachelPerryPeek wroteHello everyone 🙂
I'm Rachel and I am just starting my 2nd year at the university of Salford on the occupational therapy course. It's lovely to meet you all and can't wait to get to know everybody! I'm 24 and work Bank as a support worker for young adults and up at a centre which caters for those with learning disabilities. I have a passion for helping people (and talking to people haha) I love to travel and get to know people and I also have penpals from all over the world. I'd say my passion for Occupational Therapy probably lies in mental health... even though I probably know a lot more about learning disabilities.. my last placement in mental health rehab really captured my attention. I think I really struggle with reflection and hope I get better at this as time moves on in my career! Any advice? Well I best stop chatting! Speak soon 🙂
Hello Rachel! I also find it hard to reflect, but in my part, speaking from my own context, here are some of the things that I try to do to reflect: I think a lot of times about what happened and try my best to keep the facts straight. Then as I reflect, I try to look at other people's perspectives, for everyone has his/her own understanding base on their beliefs, culture, and experiences. I try also to be open minded and not to bias with my feelings. That's all. Hope to hear more from you!
kyla.rocafort
Byeul wroteHi, everyone! I'm Byeul Kim, a second year OT student in the University of the Philippines Manila.
Before entering college, I would here the adults say to pursue something you like in order to love what you'd do in life. I really didn't know what degree to choose. I didn't have a dream course, so to speak. But I've always loved dealing with babies and playing with kids. With little background on the profession, I chose to take OT in my current university. As I go along with my degree, I grow to love how the profession enables people to live and pursue what they want to do. This keeps me going in school, despite the workload in academics. 🙂
Statistically speaking, OT isn't a very well-known profession in our country yet. This affects me in the sense that as a student, it can be challenging to address others on how our profession works. I'd like to say that I'm still in the process of understanding and figuring out how I can explain OT to outsiders in the best way possible. This encourages and drives me to pursue my course, to be able to fully comprehend it and contribute to sharing how it can improve lives. Forums like these are actually a great help for me and other students to better understand and acquire insights from other professionals abroad - to improve our comprehension in our field. With this, I look forward to hearing more from everyone for us to have a stronger relationship in the OT community!
Hi, Byeul! 🙂 I can feel your pressure before whenever someone asks you what course you'd like to take! Like you, I have no dream course as well. All I know is that I want a profession where I'll be able to interact with children. And here I am enjoying the diverse scope of OT. There's still so much to learn yes, but slowly I'm beginning to be prepared to take the rough road each day. I'm thirsty for new OT topics and perspectives, and I can't wait to make an impact on different kinds of people. 🙂 I hope that we can both strengthen our love for OT by discussing more OT related topics. 🙂
