Blog 12
AH I can't believe that this is our last blog post! What a quick semester it has been. When I picked my new occupation of ASL, I had chosen it because I knew that it would be beneficial to my future work as an occupational therapist. I still believe this, so I do plan on continuing on in the future with ASL and to hopefully at some point become "fluent". I think at this point with how busy graduate school has been, I probably will take a break from ASL for now. But I do plan on learning more ASL in the future. I do think that I have benefited from my involvement in my new occupation, it has made me realize that there is so much more to ASL and the deaf community than I had previously thought. I also think that my involvement in ASL has helped me to grow in the struggle of learning a new activity and not having a full grasp on it yet, I have learned that it is okay to not meet some of your original plans and goals.
I really enjoyed the article that we read the week before Thanksgiving break by Spencer, Davidson, & White (1997). The article talked a lot about how as occupational therapists, we will be working with many patients who are going through major life changes. I thought that it was very eye-opening to read about how big of a role that we will play in instilling hope with our clients and helping them attain their life goals. Several articles that we read also talked about story making and helping our clients create their life narratives. As occupational therapists, we have the opportunity to help our patients create their life stories and make meaning of their lives. The articles that we read in this course made me so excited to be going into the profession of occupational therapy, we have so many different roles that we can play in helping our clients live their best lives possible.
For future MOT students, I would suggest choosing an occupation that they are genuinely interested. Any new activity will have its ups and downs, however, if you really are interested and passionate about the new occupation that you engage in it will be much easier to find intrinsic motivation to continue on with the activity. I also think that they should choose a new occupation that is easy to manage time-wise, due to the high demands of MOT school.
I had such a great time reading all of your blogs throughout the semester and seeing everyone's new occupations develop, awesome job to everyone!
Hi Hailey, I really enjoyed reading your thoughts on how learning ASL has changed your perspective about the deaf community. I think it is super valuable to learn new things to broaden your understanding of a part of life you didn't know very much about. Besides hopefully being useful directly for clients with hearing difficulties in the future, has learning ASL made you think about how it will be for clients to have to learn or relearn occupations when you are a OT?
ReplyDeleteHi, Spencer! That is a great question. It 100% has, I never thought that learning ASL would be as challenging as it has been for me. I think that learning any new occupation or relearning one that you are no longer able to do poses a lot of challenges and struggles. I think that motivation has a lot to do with one's ability to learn or relearn an occupation, I think that if you really are motivated to learn or do an activity it helps you to be determined to do what you need to do to succeed. This activity of attempting to learn a new occupation has really been eye opening, and I think I have a much better perspective on the challenges that it may bring when working with clients in the future.
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