Is OT Right for Me? Lessons from a Final-Year Student with @SheStudiesOT

Turn it up, listen along, put your listening ears on.

So I

have a little fact to start us off.

Did you know that in Australia, OTs with less than five years of experience are two and a half times more likely to leave the profession?

No.

So that tells us that the little wobbly moments that we have aren't just about us and it's not senior OTs who've been working in the profession for years and years who are leaving, but it's actually people like us who are still getting our feet underneath us and working it out and where that doubt is that sort of sends them away.

hmm it's a little bit scary and a little bit sad like you study for four years and then to feel so uncertain in those two years after and then decide ot's not for you

it breaks my heart i know i i definitely had the moment when i had graduated and i was looking for jobs and i'm scrolling through scrolling through scrolling through and i'm like what have i done

yeah

and like i'm looking at these like none of these feel like the degree that i've studied for they don't feel you know like this is ot and i was just having that moment i was like i've just studied for four years yeah and oh no what am i doing what am i doing what have i done and then the doubt as well going i don't know what i'm doing because i think there is you know there's a line between how much uni prepares you absolutely and then putting your foot in the door.

Yeah.

Was that because you didn't know what you wanted to do? Like what area you wanted to focus in on or? I think it was the opposite.

So I had a

really clear idea of sort of, I wanted to get into the AT and the home mod side of things and then looking at jobs and it felt like everything was about peds, which peds are great, but it's also not my space.

So it's just

like seeing all of these things and it's like really mixed caseload with a bunch of peds.

And I'm like,

okay.

Where's the home mods? Where's the home mods? Where's what I want to do? Yeah, where's the

thing that I've spent all this time? It's just like, again, that feeling of, oh no.

That's so

interesting you say home mods.

I'm a bit like, oh, home mods, no, get me away.

Yeah.

Yeah, I feel like you either love it or hate it.

Turn it up, listen along, put your listening ears on.

So I

have a little fact to start us off.

Did you know that in Australia, OTs with less than five years of experience are two and a half times more likely to leave the profession?

No.

So that tells us that the little wobbly moments that we have aren't just about us and it's not senior OTs who've been working in the profession for years and years who are leaving, but it's actually people like us who are still getting our feet underneath us and working it out and where that doubt is that sort of sends them away.

hmm it's a little bit scary and a little bit sad like you study for four years and then to feel so uncertain in those two years after and then decide ot's not for you

it breaks my heart i know i i definitely had the moment when i had graduated and i was looking for jobs and i'm scrolling through scrolling through scrolling through and i'm like what have i done

yeah

and like i'm looking at these like none of these feel like the degree that i've studied for they don't feel you know like this is ot and i was just having that moment i was like i've just studied for four years yeah and oh no what am i doing what am i doing what have i done and then the doubt as well going i don't know what i'm doing because i think there is you know there's a line between how much uni prepares you absolutely and then putting your foot in the door.

Yeah.

Was that because you didn't know what you wanted to do? Like what area you wanted to focus in on or? I think it was the opposite.

So I had a

really clear idea of sort of, I wanted to get into the AT and the home mod side of things and then looking at jobs and it felt like everything was about peds, which peds are great, but it's also not my space.

So it's just

like seeing all of these things and it's like really mixed caseload with a bunch of peds.

And I'm like,

okay.

Where's the home mods? Where's the home mods? Where's what I want to do? Yeah, where's the

thing that I've spent all this time? It's just like, again, that feeling of, oh no.

That's so

interesting you say home mods.

I'm a bit like, oh, home mods, no, get me away.

Yeah.

Yeah, I feel like you either love it or hate it.