Learn what to expect from Occupational Therapy Schools
Get Your Occupational Therapy Career Resources Here!
The road to occupational therapy is paved with the understanding that it’s up to you to ensure your patients live their lives to the fullest! How does an OT do that? By helping those they treat regain their independence and functionality.
Occupational therapists help patients with mental or physical disabilities improve their motor skills and better negotiate the challenges of home and work environments. If you’re reading this, it means you plan to jump start a successful occupational therapy career; you also intend to hit the ground running by reading up on the best occupational therapy schools, accredited by the Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education (ACOTE).
The right occupational therapy school will prepare you for the national certification exam and board exam to be licensed to practice; your occupational therapy school will also help you use both theoretical and clinical skills to their utmost potential.
Come into this rewarding career by understanding the fundamental differences between being an OT and careers in physical therapy. Working in occupational therapy jobs means evaluating and improving your patient’s functional abilities, rather than directly treating the injury and its damaged muscles and tissues, like a PT.
Before getting acquainted with therapy career resources designed to launch your career into the occupational therapy jobs stratosphere, ask yourself if you have what it takes. Did you:
- Excel in your high school biology, chemistry and health classes?
- Major in a subject like biology, psychology, sociology, anthropology or anatomy in college?
- Are you in the midst of applying to a masters program with no less than a 3.3 GPA?
If you answered all three bullet points with a resounding “Yes!” than you’ll love attending occupational therapy school! But there’s more cause for budding OTs to get excited…
Prior to graduating from an accredited OT program, you can find work in occupational therapy assistant jobs, by earning a 2-year associate's degree.
That’s just the icing on a whole cake’s worth of therapy career resources . American Traveler Allied and other top staffing agencies for allied health professionals encourage occupational therapists to:
- Learn your state’s licensing policy so you don’t hit any bumps on the road on the way to earning the title of OTR: (Occupational Therapist Registered)
- Recognize what an employment edge you have as an OT! With the Baby Boomer population entering retirement and the elderly living longer, your services—as predicted by the US Bureau of Labor—are expected to rise by 26% between now and 2016!
- Before your occupational therapy career hunt begins, do some volunteer work in a health care facility and use that experience to help with the six months of clinical fieldwork necessary for graduation from most occupational therapy schools.
It also pays to know which age group or special needs group you wish to focus on as an OT. Your choices include:
- Patients who are permanently disabled with diseases like cerebral palsy or spinal cord injuries
- Children in schools
- Elderly patients in hospitals and nursing homes
- Patients who have trouble functioning in work settings
- Patients in mental health facilities or addiction centers
Whichever road you choose—and there are many—in your occupational therapy jobs, know that you are a living, breathing testimony to the American Occupational Therapy Association’s (AOTA) slogan. You and your patients are living life to its fullest!”
