Top 10 Ways to Impress Your Occupational Therapy Professors

Karen Dobyns, MOT, OTR/L

While I have been an OT practitioner for nearly 5 years, I started blogging about the journey 9 years ago when I started OT school in January of 2006. At that time, I remember wanting so badly to impress my occupational therapy professors (yes, I was that student, and if you re reading this article maybe you are too). As the new semester begins, here are some tips for getting on the right foot with professors based on my own experience.

1. Keep an open mind. You may go into school thinking you want to go into pediatrics, but you've only ever experienced a small sliver of the incredible wide-open space of OT. Instructors prefer that you be enthusiastic and interested in exploring the many areas you will be exposed to while in OT school. There is a really good chance you'll change your mind.

2. Know your Framework. Be able to rattle off areas of occupation, performance skills, and client factors, without blinking an eye. If you aren't yet aware of the Occupational Therapy Practice Framework: Domain and Process, 3^rd Edition (Framework III), you will be soon. The more familiar you are with it, the more you can shape your thinking and utilize its language. See a cheat sheet on the Framework III here

3. Shun the cones. Worship client-centered, occupation-based, evidence-based care. You'll be in plenty of real clinics/simulations, or writing papers/discussing scenarios, and if you stay true to those three concepts, you'll do great. If there's nothing meaningful about an activity (in the client';s eyes), then you need to do something differently or explain to the client that you're doing what you're doing because it's a step leading them to participate in their meaningful activities.

4. Respect experience. Your professors likely have a method to their madness. They have more experience and more knowledge than you. They've watched other classes go through the same things you are. They have good intent and good reasons for making you do what you're doing, whether it seems like it or not. If you need to question a reason, make it as respectful as possible, and honor their wisdom (it may not seem like it at the time, but it's there, I promise). Most OTs don't go into academia in order to torture inexperienced souls. As one of my current professors says, “Trust the process.”

5. Accept group projects. You will be swamped with group projects. It's inevitable. It's (probably) not fun, and it can be overwhelming. Don't complain—the professors have heard it a million times before. Be a team player (don't dominate), grit your teeth, and bear it. If others are depending on you unfairly, try to find a way to empower them, rather than allowing them to suck out your soul.

6. Be professional. (This one is hopefully so obvious it hurts, but just in case….) Dress appropriately. Look at what the professors wear, and follow their lead. If you send e-mails to your professor, no matter how quickly or casually, use correct grammar and spelling. Be prepared for class by staying organized. Your schooling is your job; act like it. Also, your parents should never be in contact with your professors.

7. Save everything. There's a good chance your program will at some point ask you to show proof of your professional development. Keep any e-mails of praise or thanks you receive, and any evidence that shows you've been actively networking, showing initiative, exhibiting a strong OT identity, etc. Maybe save a few things you aren't as proud of, too, so you can show the growth.

8. Reflect, reflect, reflect. Be a reflective listener for others, but also learn to reflect on yourself and what you're learning. How does it affect you? How does it affect others? What are you getting out of this experience? Reflection should be part of your daily life, and incorporated into your writings or class discussions. Reflecting allows you to see what does and doesn’t work, and how to make things better. Professors appreciate the depth that reflection brings into your academics.

9. Demonstrate understanding. Don't just regurgitate knowledge. Demonstrate you've done—and understood—the readings by asking for clarification or expansion of a topic you read about. Show you're synthesizing by discussing how material in one class applies to material from another, or how it applies to things you've seen in the clinic, or how it may be relevant to another discipline. Professors appreciate it when you can recognize the nuances and complexities of synthesized information, and this skill will serve you well in practice.

But that being said…

10. Realize that knowledge isn't everything. The ability to listen; to care; to show rapport with your peers, instructors, and clients; to empathize, to be motivated or motivate others, is what really matters. Maybe you aren't a great student, but you have an incredibly empathic heart and your clients and community members love you. That's impressive to your professors because ultimately, beyond a basic level of competence, what clients care about most is feeling seen, recognized, heard, and acknowledged by their therapist. And your professors know that. So good grades or not, put your chin up. There are lots of ways to impress your professors while preparing yourself for this great career!

In preparation for this article, I asked several professors about their best advice to students. Here are some highlights. Read the advice in full on my blog.

• I have students ask me all the time, how can I be successful on fieldwork as an OT?’. I pause and say… I can teach you balance scales, manual muscle testing, G codes, vision testing, what glioblastomas are, how to identify cognitive issues vs. psych issues, how to transfer people safely and how to document…. What I can’t teach you is how to care, how to really see your patients, how to value each person and what they can teach you, or that you can learn from EVERY interaction (good or bad). I cannot teach you to show up on time or early, tuck in your shirt, wear a clean shirt, brush your teeth, and show up prepared to do your very best each day. You have to want this, you have to want this because there are people who cannot do for themselves and who need a voice. Caring— I cannot teach you to care …. if you care, there is no limit to the goodness one can do!”—S.S.
• Always assume that your educators have the best intentions in the decisions they make—and that these decisions are made to help shape you (and your peers) to become occupation-centered, flexible, reflexive, adaptable occupational therapists, who will be our future colleagues… and the future leaders of our profession! Whether you believe this to be true or not, coming from this standpoint when you open a discussion, ask a question, or even query a grade means that you come from a position of respect and it will most likely then be responded to with respect.”—A.H.
• Demonstrate that you have an open mind and are willing to see things from different perspectives. Get involved in your online community of practice …and not just for putting your assignment questions online and expecting someone to give you the answer. Hint: There isn’t usually one answer, it’s about showing you’ve thought about it, read around, and made a clinically reasoned decision. Be honest, and please reflect with purpose, to learn something.”—K.S.
• Be one of the first to ask a question that shows you’ve done the required reading (reference the page #) and that you truly would appreciate more information. (It helps to clarify your level of understanding for the professor and probably helps at least two other students who are more hesitant to attempt this “risky” behavior.) Bonus points if you ask a question based on an AJOT article related to that or the previous day’s assigned reading.”—L.F.

Karen Dobyns wrote more than 1,000 posts during her time in OT school from 2006 to 2009. Scroll down the sidebar to her archives while on missawesomeness.com, then click a year and right-click to “Open in New Tab.” 

Karen spent most of her career in elementary schools. She is now going to school full-time for her post-professional clinical doctorate in OT, and slowly building up her own health and wellness business in “pediatric empowerment.” She’s also working on writing children’s picture books that feature children with special needs and OT. She can be contacted at karen.dobyns@gmail.com.