Why I am becoming an occupational therapist

My training as an occupational therapist is slowly coming to an end. Actually, it's not slow at all, but rather fast. Time is really flying by. It has been more than 3.5 years since I started my training at the BBA Oldenburg.

I applied for the program a year ago and had to write a letter of motivation for the training. Exactly this letter of motivation recently fell into my hands again and I had to read it right away. I wanted to know what I had written back then. I thought, now that I have been in training for quite a long time (with an interruption due to parental leave), I would certainly think differently about it.

For example, about my interest in the profession, I wrote, "I have a desire to encourage, support, and advise people on what I could do as an occupational therapist. I like that meaningful support can help individuals become more independent." At that point, I noticed that purely nothing had changed.

In the meantime, I have already completed a total of more than nine months of internships. I have done the internships in three different areas: functional children, functional adults and occupational therapy. My exam internship will be in the psycho-social area. What I like about working as an occupational therapist is that we work so close to everyday life. I like the perspective on the client, which includes not only the functional deficits, but also the effects on everyday life, activities and participation. It also incorporates environmental influences.

For example, sometimes it is not important to work on a particular functional deficit if it is not at all relevant to the client. In such a case, he himself also does not have the desire to change this area and will cooperate less well in therapy (show less compliance or even adherence ).

I like the action-oriented approach of the work, which no longer only includes mindless functional exercises in the therapy. I then look at where exactly the problems are in an action and work with the clients on these problems starting from the action.

Further I wrote in the motivation letter about my expectations concerning the training. There I wrote about the versatile work and the different treatment methods connected with it. In addition, I wrote about the anatomical basics that I wanted to learn.

Now, so shortly before completion of the theoretical part of the training (with the exception of the exams, of course), I can say that I have been able to learn an incredible amount in the last few years. I am a very inquisitive person and yes, I also like to learn new things, which is incredibly easy for me if it interests me.

I was and still am very interested in the field of occupational therapy, so I am already looking forward to the many opportunities for further education after my training. Four years ago, I would not have thought that I would be able to recognize so much from a client's situation, both in terms of his deficits but also in terms of his resources. I would not have thought that I would be able to independently plan a therapy that would really benefit the client.

But that is exactly what I have learned and I would like to thank my teachers here, who do their job really well (even if they will probably never read it)!

More than four years ago I applied for the training to become an occupational therapist and now I am about to graduate. And it is even clearer to me now than it was four years ago: occupational therapy is exactly the right thing for me!