This statement is the second essay (along with Personal Statement #1) required for my application to the University of Puget Sound. This essay is in response to several questions posed on their website and can be up to six pages (making this the longest personal statement that I will submit to any school). With my submission of this essay I have completed my application to UPS, and I have completed the first of five applications I will submit between now and the end of January. I’m on my way!
Reasons for Pursuing Occupational Therapy Study at Puget Sound
I have fallen into every job I have ever had by chance or convenience. When I was 15 my mother knew I was interested in making my own money, noticed a “for hire” sign at a fast food restaurant, sang my praises to the manager, and my employment history began. The decade-long career I recently left began when a friend knew I needed to escape a verbally abusive boss and submitted my resume for me at her place of employment. When I started to really take notice that I wasn’t content with my life and begun the exploration to determine why, it didn’t take too long to realize that none of the seven jobs I had in my 20 years of employment were chosen on purpose and that fact might have some bearing on my lack of gratification.
The “quest for the next” (as I came to know it) began with taking stock of the things they tell you to take stock of when you’re in high school in order to make choices about what work to pursue: what are your skills and what are your interests?
My positive attributes are that I am organized; a natural leader; responsible; calm, cool and collected under pressure; diplomatic; respectful of but not intimidated by authority or sensitive situations; and a quick learner. I adapt well to new environments, and I am adept at documentation. These were skills that I had acquired through stints at several jobs, and honed at my recent post as an administrative director at a large, international law firm. That environment was never short of sensitive situations with prickly and high-strung individuals looking for me to implement a creative solution to their problems with minimal resources. In addition to finding these solutions on a regular basis, my success in that environment was mainly due to my philosophy that the best communication is honest and straightforward even if the person you are talking to is in a position of authority or is not going to like what you have to say. My approach did not always garner immediate appreciation, but more often than not the recipient later thanked me for my candor and I could always walk away knowing I had done the right thing.
My position at the law firm put me in charge of certain areas of expertise that were staffed by individuals that in actuality reported directly to branch office managers in multiple states. Local branch managers were tasked with hiring new staff members guided by job descriptions written my myself, were responsible for day-to-day oversight, and composed annual reviews of these staff members with my input. Due to the dotted line reporting structure and my lack of involvement in hiring, I would often find myself in the position of having to candidly explain to the local manager why their hire was not acceptable in the position. These conversations would progress over time from an initial casual note of concern from me, through regular check-ins as I spent many hours attempting to train their staff member into compliance, and finally into a terse conversation about the need to replace the staff member. Tension was frequently high during these conversations because the local manager would feel defensive about their decision to hire them and that someone several hundred miles away was telling them that their staff member was no longer coachable. However, despite the frustration and initial animosity of these situations, inevitably the manager would understand that I had in actuality done them a favor by insisting that they move on to a better fit for the position.
My list of interests to consider was about as extensive as my (humble?) list of skills. I found this long list intimidating because I was anxious to define my new path and I was daunted by the task of narrowing it. I did know with certainty that I wanted my new career to make me feel as great as I did after a day of volunteering; I wanted to see my new career as a life’s work and not as a paycheck; I wanted to go home most days with a solid definition of how I had improved the world – even just a little bit – that day; and I wanted a career that I wasn’t anxiously awaiting the end of at the age of retirement determined by the Social Security Administration.
I have volunteered for and given money to many organizations in my life. I have given time and donations to food banks, international relief work, foster kids, homeless families, homeless teens, homeless animals, wounded wildlife, cancer research, budding international entrepreneurs, etc. My empathetic nature could never decide who was more deserving – people or animals, Americans or those across political borders. When I made the decision in my heart to leave my corporate career, I volunteered with more of an investigative eye and through the lens of how these types of activities could translate into a full-time pursuit. I traveled to Nepal for three weeks to try and imagine what a long-term post in a developing nation would feel like; I thought about the types of people I had met that worked in various non-profit arenas; I looked at educational programs related to non-profit management, grant writing and animal welfare.
While I believe the exercise of all of these investigations contributed in some way to my final decision, in the end it was a much more organic and seemingly karmic path that led me to Occupational Therapy. My volunteer work related to cancer research was my involvement of several years in a fundraising program for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. The program involved fundraising and training for several months to eventually take a trip to a national park to complete a hike. I learned about the outdoors while in that program but also so much more that enveloped other areas in my life… how to feel a sense of accomplishment, how to encourage others, how to feel prepared and confident, how to step out of my comfort zone. When I noticed an ad looking for volunteers to help kids with disabilities enjoy the outdoors I was immediately drawn into an organization called Outdoors for All. I hoped that the benefits I had personally gleaned from my outdoor endeavors would somehow be even more profound for these kids.
My list of skills never included the word “patience”. There is in fact a large part of my personality that is decidedly impatient, always anxious and frustrated when things don’t go as I plan or as fast as I want them to go. Even when I was hiking with my friends to raise money for blood borne cancers I was always impatient with my inability to finish a trail quite as fast as I wanted. But here I was, biking and kayaking and doing other activities with kids that are by definition a bit slower than the rest of us, and I never once felt that they or I needed to hurry up. Each moment was gold and I was never anxious to finish anything… there wasn’t really anything to finish when we were out together. I loved them and I loved myself when I was with them.
My wish for a more fine tuned search for my new work was granted. It wasn’t long before I began discovering job postings for Occupational Therapists. I had never heard of Occupational Therapy before, and my initial searches for a definition were a bit frustrating. “Occupational therapy is as a profession concerned with promoting health and well being through engagement in occupation.” Huh? They help people find jobs? Why are they defining it with repetitive words? My understanding of the work grew as I found personal accounts of therapists in the field and of people that had benefitted from the practice. Occupational Therapy doesn’t seem to be hemmed in by strict workplace definitions or job descriptions, but an overriding interest in helping people live fuller and more content lives, lives with greater independence, and a higher quality of life. When I understood that Occupational Therapists develop specific skills to creatively help people from all walks of life and in a myriad of situations that is when the light bulb went off: I can seek an education in a helping profession and walk away with concrete tools to apply to a diverse list of arenas.
I have interned in two settings in the last six months, each of them quite different from the other: an outpatient pediatric clinic and the inpatient skilled nursing facility. Both settings treat people with an incredibly wide array of challenges. I have been amazed at how the professionals in each environment can have the skills to effectively treat children with so many different types of challenges (e.g. autism, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, sensory integration disorder, anxiety disorders, etc.) or adults recovering from a myriad of ailments (e.g. hip replacement surgery, infections, traumatic brain injury, strokes, etc.), juggling so many treatment approaches and goals throughout their day. In both settings the therapists make progress with their clients by utilizing a foundation of medical knowledge and creatively designing approaches to help their clients learn and relearn how to function in their day-to-day lives.
One of the greatest challenges I have observed in both environments is the effort to discharge a client. Sometimes discharging a patient from Occupational Therapy activities at the nursing facility is positive (they are headed home!) or discharging a youth from the pediatric clinic is encouraging (they have developed to a typical level!). On the other hand, sometimes the discharge is a discouraging experience for the therapist and/or the client’s family. Patients that have plateaued in either setting face unwelcome news – in the case of the nursing facility they may be moving onto a less independent living environment than they would like, and in the case of the pediatric clients the child may have reached their full potential and the parent has to hear that their child will never develop into the same skills as their peers. Observing the therapists in both settings have these conversations reminds me in some ways of the conversations I would have to have with branch managers in my old profession, but in the case of therapy work I find myself empathetic to the personal sensitivities and hope to learn the skills to navigate these types of conversations effectively and sympathetically as I complete my Master’s degree.
My research into the field of Occupational Therapy and my internship experiences have done little to specifically define my long-term professional goals, but that statement actually excites me! I have enjoyed both of my internship settings immensely, and other reading about other possible settings for therapy work leave me anxious to try as many as possible. I hope to explore settings in mental health, in hospitals, and with veterans. My past experience with software design and implementation has me wondering if I may enjoy developing software solutions for those with disabilities later in my career, and I may also investigate animal-assisted therapy due to my past work with dogs as a volunteer with animal shelters.
I am applying to the University of Puget Sound for two reasons. One incentive is that I am a born and bred Pacific Northwest girl and I absolutely love this part of the country. I have traveled a considerable amount around the United States and abroad and feel confident in saying that I am one of the lucky ones to have been born where she is meant to live. I love many things about this area, including the strong sense of empathy that most in our area display for those in need. More importantly, I am applying to UPS due to the high praise I have heard from therapy professionals in the area regarding the caliber of graduates from your MOT program. The praise specifically references your graduates’ clinical effectiveness due to the training received at your on-site clinic and your program’s focus on practical skills. Even though UPS is not ranked as highly as other local programs according to US News & World Report, local therapists that I respect have encouraged me to pursue an education at UPS over other universities.
If accepted into your program I would likely pursue the policy/advocacy/leadership track. Just as the great number settings in which I may one day practice excites me, so does the greater idea of those in this profession joining together and fighting for our universal aims of improving the quality of life for all individuals regardless of challenge. Advocating for greater resources and opportunities for our clients; greater learning opportunities for the families of our clients; and greater support from society at large for our pursuits would seem a natural utilization of my leadership abilities and enthusiasm for this great life’s work!
Thank you for considering me as an entry-level Master’s candidate to your School of Occupational Therapy.
