-
Looking for HSC notes and resources? Check out our Notes & Resources page
occupational therapy? (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter melon
- Start date
Hey, I'm studying occupational therapy at the moment, and I do like it on the whole, but I'm sick of it at the moment because I have sooo many assignments due.
The good things about it are that it has really good career prospects, OTs are in demand at the moment, and there are heaps of opportunities to travel once you graduate and you can work in almost any country. Also, because its such a broad area, you can work in a variety of different settings doing heaps of different things.
I found it really easy to make friends doing OT, because the type of people who choose it are usually those who want to help people etc and thats good because there are LOADS of group assignments. During semester 1, I think I had about 1 or 2 assignments which weren't group, or pairs assignments and the rest were group. You also do a lot of group presentations and speeches. Group assignments can really suck sometimes, but it does mean the workload is split among the group members which kinda makes it easier. And yeah, it does help you to get to know heaps of people and make friends etc.
The teaching staff are alright...it depends on the subject I guess. It helps if you get good tutors. A few of the lecturers are a bit dull.
The bad things about it are the workload and the fact that you're at Cumberland Campus, where the social life isn't all that great.
The workload in first semester isn't too bad. It seemed bad at the time, but compared to this semester it was easy. We had a lot of speeches and presentations, and a practical viva as well.
The workload this semester is annoying, because all the assignments seem to be due all at once. For example, In the next 2 weeks I have 6 assignments due and a Viva, and I also handed in 3 assignments last week. Then I have one week of Stuvac and 4 or 5 exams.
In first year you do 7 subjects each semester.
You also do fieldwork placement, the uni organises this for you depending on which area you live in. In first year (and I think 2nd year) you have to do it during your holidays between semesters. I was kinda annoyed about this, but in the end I had so much fun on placement that I didn't care, and we had really long July holidays anyway.
Some subjects, like Anatomy require a lot of rote learning and lots of memorizing. I hate anatomy and apparently it has a 60% failure rate. Also, if you are going to do OT, be warned that you do have to use Cadavers in the labs. Don't be freaked out by that though, a lot of my uni friends were worried about it, but its not really all that bad.
The other bad thing about it is that when people ask you what Occupational therapy is, theres no easy answer to give. I'm always like, ummm, I dunno, cause its such a broad area.
But overall, its a really good course, in the sense that you're qualified to do heaps of different things once you graduate, and its good if you want to travel and apparently its a well respected degree.
I dunno if thats answered your questions, but yeah feel free to ask me anything else.
The good things about it are that it has really good career prospects, OTs are in demand at the moment, and there are heaps of opportunities to travel once you graduate and you can work in almost any country. Also, because its such a broad area, you can work in a variety of different settings doing heaps of different things.
I found it really easy to make friends doing OT, because the type of people who choose it are usually those who want to help people etc and thats good because there are LOADS of group assignments. During semester 1, I think I had about 1 or 2 assignments which weren't group, or pairs assignments and the rest were group. You also do a lot of group presentations and speeches. Group assignments can really suck sometimes, but it does mean the workload is split among the group members which kinda makes it easier. And yeah, it does help you to get to know heaps of people and make friends etc.
The teaching staff are alright...it depends on the subject I guess. It helps if you get good tutors. A few of the lecturers are a bit dull.
The bad things about it are the workload and the fact that you're at Cumberland Campus, where the social life isn't all that great.
The workload in first semester isn't too bad. It seemed bad at the time, but compared to this semester it was easy. We had a lot of speeches and presentations, and a practical viva as well.
The workload this semester is annoying, because all the assignments seem to be due all at once. For example, In the next 2 weeks I have 6 assignments due and a Viva, and I also handed in 3 assignments last week. Then I have one week of Stuvac and 4 or 5 exams.
In first year you do 7 subjects each semester.
You also do fieldwork placement, the uni organises this for you depending on which area you live in. In first year (and I think 2nd year) you have to do it during your holidays between semesters. I was kinda annoyed about this, but in the end I had so much fun on placement that I didn't care, and we had really long July holidays anyway.
Some subjects, like Anatomy require a lot of rote learning and lots of memorizing. I hate anatomy and apparently it has a 60% failure rate. Also, if you are going to do OT, be warned that you do have to use Cadavers in the labs. Don't be freaked out by that though, a lot of my uni friends were worried about it, but its not really all that bad.
The other bad thing about it is that when people ask you what Occupational therapy is, theres no easy answer to give. I'm always like, ummm, I dunno, cause its such a broad area.
But overall, its a really good course, in the sense that you're qualified to do heaps of different things once you graduate, and its good if you want to travel and apparently its a well respected degree.
I dunno if thats answered your questions, but yeah feel free to ask me anything else.
Last edited:
omg thankyou so much - i wasnt expecting that much
um, ok then.. well i think id be ok with the anatomy stuff - im not too bad with rote learning, & i think i could learn to cope with cadavers - im assuming thats corpses? im not really looking forward to the vivas - does that mean you have to actually know what youre talking about? =s
cos im one of those people who can stay up all night to finish an assessment (& get a bloody good mark for the few hours ive put into it) but after its finished, i cant remember anything about it...im i gunna have to be..organised?ugh.
also, how much chem is involved in the course, cos ive not done it for the hsc - or maths. cos it seems like you need them for most of the other health sciences...
i did biology last year, & i just did pdhpe - are they gunna help at all? i dont think any of my other subjects would, cos theyre all languages, & cafs
and what subjects do you do? cos i dont really know much abot OT - it was only really something i put down in my preferences cos someone suggested it & it sounded kinda interesting - like, i was thinking about doing physio or chiropractic or sports & exercise science at one stage, & so i know quite a bit about them & what the course involves, but i havent looked into OT, so youre really all i have to go on at the moment =D
how long do you spend at uni each week? like, how many lectures & tutes are there? & do you ever get to be at the camperdown campus, or do you do everything at the cumberland campus? in general, do cumberland people have anything to do with the arty people, or is it like being at separate uni's?
oh, & you said at the end that youre qualified to do heaps of different things...like what? cos i thought OT was just a kind of, i dunno, a self-contained sort of thing, you know, like you get an OT degree, & then you become an OT - is it not that simple?
ah, i ask a lot of questions, eh? sorry...
hehe thankyou so much =)
um, ok then.. well i think id be ok with the anatomy stuff - im not too bad with rote learning, & i think i could learn to cope with cadavers - im assuming thats corpses? im not really looking forward to the vivas - does that mean you have to actually know what youre talking about? =s
cos im one of those people who can stay up all night to finish an assessment (& get a bloody good mark for the few hours ive put into it) but after its finished, i cant remember anything about it...im i gunna have to be..organised?ugh.
also, how much chem is involved in the course, cos ive not done it for the hsc - or maths. cos it seems like you need them for most of the other health sciences...
i did biology last year, & i just did pdhpe - are they gunna help at all? i dont think any of my other subjects would, cos theyre all languages, & cafs
and what subjects do you do? cos i dont really know much abot OT - it was only really something i put down in my preferences cos someone suggested it & it sounded kinda interesting - like, i was thinking about doing physio or chiropractic or sports & exercise science at one stage, & so i know quite a bit about them & what the course involves, but i havent looked into OT, so youre really all i have to go on at the moment =D
how long do you spend at uni each week? like, how many lectures & tutes are there? & do you ever get to be at the camperdown campus, or do you do everything at the cumberland campus? in general, do cumberland people have anything to do with the arty people, or is it like being at separate uni's?
oh, & you said at the end that youre qualified to do heaps of different things...like what? cos i thought OT was just a kind of, i dunno, a self-contained sort of thing, you know, like you get an OT degree, & then you become an OT - is it not that simple?
ah, i ask a lot of questions, eh? sorry...
hehe thankyou so much =)
In first year, theres barely any chem at all. I didn't do chem at school and I only did maths up to the end of year 11. I was going to do a bridging course for chem, but I never got around to it.im cool! said:
2 of my friends did it though, and said that it was a complete waste of time and money, and was also extremely boring. In first semester we had a subject called Human Biology and Biochemistry and thats about the only subject where theres been chemistry stuff, and it was all really basic anyway. Oh in Neuroscience theres a little bit of chem as well, but its really easy.
I did Biology for the HSC and that was pretty useful, I think PD/H/PE would be useful for several subjects too.
Yeah cadavers are corpses. But not a whole body or anything, you just work with small amounts of the body at a time.im cool! said:
I have a Viva coming up on wednesday
They're not that bad. If you fail they let you re-do it once, but you can only get 50% for the second try, even if you get everything right.During semester there always seems to be about 3 crazy weeks where all the assignments are due all at once, so yeah I find I have to do a lot of it the night before. Its hard if you've got a part time job, like I work saturday and sunday every weekend and its really difficult to get all the uni work done on top of that.
Well in 1st semester we did;im cool! said:
-Human Biology and Biochem - which is a fairly basic biology and chemistry subject
-OT Theory and Process - which was all the really detailed and boring theory stuff behind OT
-Components of Occupational performace (COP) 1A - which was about counselling and different approaches to counselling
-Psychology
-Sociology
- Human Occupations 1A - which was a fairly practical subject, we did stuff like travel around campus in wheelchairs and lead people around blindfolded and stuff
-Professional Practice 1 - which was basically preparing for fieldwork placement
In 2nd semester we're doing
- Functional Anatomy A
- Neuroscience
- Occupational role development across the lifespan - Childhood, which is mainly about child devlopment, physically, cognitively and psychosocially
- ORL Adolescence, which is pretty interesting, its about stuff like social problems that adolescents have
- Human Occupations 1b - which is about community OT, equipment and case conferencing etc
- COP 1B Biomechanics, which is about how to test muscle strength, range of motion and make orthosis and things like that
- Professional Practice - mainyl just reflecting on what happened on work placement
You also have to do a certain amount of credit points in electives during the degree, (I think its about 6 credit points, not sure though). So most people start doing electives in 2nd semester of 1st year.
You can do electives from degrees at Cumberland, or from other faculties of Sydney Uni. The only time you'd have a subject on main campus is if you chose to do an elective there. Realistically though, your choice of electives is limited by the OT timetable, as its hard to find something that doesn't clash with your timetable, which you can't really change.
Usually you'd be at uni 4 days a week, so you have friday off each week. On 3 out of 4 days, you'd probably have to be at uni from 9am-4pm or 9am-5pm. But sometimes tutorials for a subject don't go for the whole semester. Like they might just run from weeks 1-9, so you can go home earlier towards the end of semester.
Some lectures you can easily skip, too. And for subjects that are common for several degrees, you can go to lectures that aren't on your timetable. For example in 1st semester OTs had Sociology on friday, but the Rehab counselling students had the same Sociology lecture on tuesday afternoons, so the OTs would go to the tuesday lecture too, so we didn't have to turn up on friday.
Yeah, once you get the degree you become an OT, but what I meant is that its a really broad area, and you can do heaps of different things as an OT. Like working inPeadiatrics, Schools, Rehabilitation programs, Hand therapy, Mental health, health promotion, neurology, in nursing homes, on camps for kids with disibilities, hospitals and project development. You can also do a lot of community type jobs, work for the government etc. Some OTs also provide medico-legal assessments for court hearings and stuff like that.im cool! said:
I think if you're interested in health sciences, OTs a good one to do. I like it cause its not just all about treating the physical side of things with exercises and stuff, theres also a social side to it as well, like finding stuff thats meaningful to the client and designing activities etc.im cool! said:
Miss_Mirage86
Full-Time Princess
wow i had always thought of doing occ therapy and i put it down as one of my preferences but from wat uve said i want to do it more than before... im really interested in all that stuff to say. the workload seems alot but i spose u get that with all courses... thanx for the info.
wow! thanks leap, you are my god! im sure i'll think of another question or two when im not so tired...
& to miss mirage, well, i might see you next year then! which will be cool, cos then there'll be someone i know doing my course....well, kinda.... =P
& to miss mirage, well, i might see you next year then! which will be cool, cos then there'll be someone i know doing my course....well, kinda.... =P
Miss_Mirage86
Full-Time Princess
lol yeah maybe, if i get the uai for it! hehe. hmmm... i think UWS uai for it is lower so i mite get in there lol, but id prefer sydney by a long way.
Miss_Mirage86 said:
I didn't even put UWS down as a preference because I couldn't be bothered travelling there.im cool! said:
But actually I've heard that the OT course at UWS is good because its very practical and that it has a good reputation among employers.
Did I mention it might be a good idea to do an anatomy bridging course? I had 2 anatomy exams today and I totally failed both of them...it has like a 60% failure rate or something...looks like I'll be repeating it next year
Thanks heaps for the questions and answers! I was really considering occupational therapy as a career and now i know that i want to do it. My first preference will be uws because it is only half an hour away but i have also put usyd as my other preference. I have not heard of many people who have done ot so this really helped. Thanks
jam3s
Radiation Therapist
- Joined
- Apr 27, 2004
- Messages
- 280
- Gender
- Undisclosed
- HSC
- N/A
Any of ur firends do sport science? or radiation science because i am really not sure which to pik