Acceptance letter

The great excitement of the week was receiving an email from the University of Minnesota saying that it is their pleasure to offer me admission to their Occupational Therapy class of 2014. Needless to say, it is my pleasure to accept. I am waiting for a few days to respond to see if I hear from St Catherine's where I also applied. 

Both schools make their decisions based on grades, references and an essay. My time volunteering in the OT department at a nearby hospital allowed me to get a good reference from one of the therapists there. The essay was to explain why I selected OT as a career, how an OT degree relates to my immediate and long-term professional goals and how my background will help me achieve my goals. Thanks to the help of my English teacher roommate and an aunt I managed to write the following and get close to fulfilling the 4500 character limit. (My first draft was about half that amount.)

Life has been compared to a story. Everyone’s story is unique and compelling. My life experiences, both the joyful and the difficult, shape who I am today and what I desire in the future.

After growing up in northwest Iowa and attending college in Chicago, I moved to Lyon, France to work with immigrants through a church based organization. After 18 years of learning the language and culture and offering assistance to people who became very dear to me, a mentor challenged me to consider a change because of the growing discontent that I felt. She encouraged me to take a deeper look into my strengths, weaknesses and passions. Did I want to continue writing the same kind of story with my life? I had evaluated these things as a teenager but this time my rich life experience allowed me to see myself more clearly.

The organization I worked with in Lyon sought to provide a place where an immigrant’s culture was respected and they could receive practical assistance and friendship. Besides planning cultural activities for all ages I also visited women in their homes. I enjoyed drinking tea with them as I sought to help them navigate the challenges they faced being away from extended family in a new culture. I tried to help the parents and children understand each other as the parents were often viewed as unwilling to change while the children were seen as becoming too French. I enjoyed these relationships but also wondered if I was really making a difference. Others did not always share the few concrete goals for my position so I found it hard to evaluate my effectiveness.

As I looked back on my work experience I realized I most enjoyed helping people in practical ways. It could be as simple as taking a single mother without a car to the grocery store so she could stock up on heavy items or spending two weeks in Tunisia with a friend after her mother died as she closed up her mother’s house. Someone told her it wasn’t right to allow me to work on my vacation. I didn’t mind the work at all since I was there to help.

I have learned I am a doer, not a talker. Long discussions about an issue lead to impatience as I start itching for some action. I grew up in a farm family that did everything together from cleaning the house to weeding the garden to picking up rocks in the field. Someone described our family as having shoulder-to-shoulder relationships. Maybe that is why I derive the most satisfaction from coming alongside people whether their struggle is relational, financial, physical or emotional, and doing things that will make their life better.  In the process I can get to know them better and hear their story.

Occupational Therapy allows me to combine my love for people with a specific way to help them. Almost everyone who needs therapy is at a point of crisis. For some reason, a stroke, a hip replacement, an accident, this chapter of their story is filled with tension and struggle. As a therapist I will have the skills to help them reach their goals and obtain the best physical and cognitive functioning available to them. I know from watching therapists interact with patients that I will probably have to sit on my hands so my desire to help doesn’t lead me to do things for my patients that they can do for themselves even if it is painfully slow. I also believe that my demeanor and encouragement are an important part of my skill set and can assist patients and their family as they navigate these new challenges.

I enjoy working as part of a team, making an important and valued contribution as we address problems. I don’t want to be in a solitary occupation during the next chapter of my life. As an occupational therapist I will have a shoulder-to-shoulder relationship with a team of medical professionals as well as my patients as we all work toward the same goal.

I have lived happily in a rural community, and in large cities both in the US and abroad. As a result, a particular location for employment is not a requirement.  Wherever therapists are needed, patients are writing compelling stories. The time I have spent volunteering in the OT department at Hennepin County Medical Center has shown me that through an Occupational Therapy career I will be helping one person at a time, in a concrete way. And the best part will be going back each day to learn more about the characters and find out how this chapter in each of their stories will end.