Saturday, September 15, 2012

Tips for first year OT Students



When I started this, my second year as an OT student, my group threw a welcome party for the new students. To continue the tradition, each of us gave advice to the new group to help them succeed in their first year.  I had a lot of ideas in my mind, but this was the advice I ended up giving them:

Keep a positive attitude. When you feel overwhelmed, and wish to be out with your friends or family instead of having to study, think of these years as "separated" for your personal and professional development. In the future, you'll feel happy and proud that you really took advantage of this period.

This was the thought that helped me ( and still does) keep up going in those moments of frustration in which I had a thousand things to do and at the same time asked myself: why am I not at the beach or having fun with my family and friends right now? It's true that those moments of fun also come during the semester but, to be sincere, the moments when you feel overwhelmed come more often, so I couldn’t ignore them in my advice.

Now, I want to share some extra tips that helped me and maybe can help other OT students:

1. Never sleep less than 6 hours- You are not going to function well in classes or tests if you don't give a chance to your brain to rest and integrate all the material you studied. If you feel really tired, stop there. Those hours of sleep will help you understand better the material than studying all night without sleeping.

2. Identify your most productive hours and take advantage of them. My productive hours are in the early morning (4am), when there is no one at facebook, nobody calls me or sends me text messages. In two hours of study in the morning I can do more than in 4 in the afternoon.

3. Find your balance- Balance between studying and the rest of the things in your life is important, but it’s also very individual. Find out how much study time you need to do well without comparing yourself to others. Sometimes finding your balance can mean having less leisure time, because maybe in your case, you have too much. In my case, finding my balance means trying to study less and spend more time in my other interests. But, be careful, don’t take for excuse your search of “balance” to waste a lot of time resting…..you’ll regret it. You can do everything with moderation.

4. Make lists- When I feel like I have too many things to do, making lists usually helps me. I write down everything I have to do for the week, sometimes in priority order. That way, when I’m tired of working with something, I just  look at the list, and start with something else. I am a lot more productive when I make "to do" lists, and the best feeling in the world is to scratch something from it!

5. Love what you do- If you don’t fall in love with the profession, my advice is that you don’t continue in it. If you really love OT, you’ll be willing to make the necessary sacrifices to become the kind of professional that your future clients deserve.

I know that I could have given you many more tips, but right now I have a lot of study to do, so I hope this can help.

With OT love,

Luna


10 comments:

  1. Thanks! This is helpful. I'm gonna be starting in August and just reading stuff like this is gearing me up right!

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    1. I'm glad I could help! Good luck in your OT journey!

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  2. Thank you so much Luna, I am in my final year and it has been challenging from the start and this advice is just what I needed more especially the 6 hours of sleep because I have not been functional at all either I sleep too much. I used to do lists but I hardly prioritised because I thought I would get to everything and in the end I felt out of love with OT which is just dangerous. So thank you I choose not to drop out or give up I've loved this course to give it up now!

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  3. Thank you Luna I am doing my 4th year and it has been a battle because of the workload and inability to cope with it, your advice came at just the right time, I am also productive in the morning but somehow I slept too late and never finished my work, I found myself very sleepy even during the days and it affected a lot of client handling, I really think this will help with the rest of the year Kind Regards Tebogo

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    1. I hope it helps! I think it's important to put small goals in the areas we think we need to improve to be able to follow our schedule and stick to them. No profession is perfect and everything that is worthy of fighting for will have it's challenges. We are human beings and it's normal to feel tired of work sometimes. Now that I have finish studying and I'm just working, I can tell you that it's does gets better. There are those days anyway in which I feel tired and I wish to stay home. I just ask God to give me the motivation to be the best OT I can, and keep in mind that each one of my patients is worthy of the best service I can give them under my circumstances. That has helped me a lot, and after I leave home and start working, I get involved in what I'm doing and it doesn't seem so bad. Many times, I even get home with more energy that when I left! But as you may already know, to feel personal realization you need to cover your basics first, so care for your health; exercise, eat and sleep well. Let me know how everything goes.

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  4. I'm a second year OT student and this is exactly what I needed today. Thank you.

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  5. I am a second year OT student and this is exactly what I needed today. Thank you.

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  6. Glad I could help! When the time to study for the NBCOT comes, don't forget to check out my "How I studied for the NBCOT" article.

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  7. I will also add a point #5 and #6... now that social media is more important than when you posted this.

    My #5- Be respectful to OT practitioners who approach you on social media. There are some of us who reach out to students and other practitioners (like myself) because we are friendly and we want to offer support (and sometimes constructive criticism if appropriate), as we believe in growing the future generations. Build rapport with us. We genuinely want to help you to become the best OT you can be.

    My #6- Be careful when you put up some OT related hashtags on your social media profiles. You may not know it, but you are actually letting the world know that you are an OT student or practitioner. Hence, you got to be accountable for your profiles' posts and your conduct online. After all, you are representing your future self as a practitioner some day. More importantly, you are a representative of the OT profession too.

    Bill Wong, OTD, OTR/L

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    1. Great advice! How you respond/manage social media is really important. If you'd like to write a more in depth post about this, I'll be happy to post it as a Guest Post.

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