A little life update

Whoa! I just realized it's been almost 3 months since my last post

 

That's an extremely long time.

I actually forgive you in advance if you completely forgot who I am haha.

 

The reason why I haven't been around lately is because I have been ridiculously BUSY!!!

but it's all for great reasons.

 

This Friday marks 3 weeks of starting graduate school :)

This program I am in was completely unexpected.

Some of you may (or may not) know that I had planned to go to school to become a Physical Therapist.

Well after having applied to PT for 2 straight years in a row, and being denied both years from numerous schools, I started to question whether or not I really was meant to be doing PT.

I considered so many other paths, but knew I needed to stay in healthcare.

I considered nursing, occupational therapy, physician's assistant, you name it, I thought about it.

But there was one career that never crossed my mind in my search.

Orthotics & Prosthetics!!!

You see, this last round that I applied to PT school, I applied to 7 different schools, one of those schools was Loma Linda University. A very well known school in the medical field. They have a children's hospital, heart transplant center, VA hospital, etc. It's huge and the campus and hospital are basically on the same property.

Although I knew it was such a great school, I didn't consider it my first choice for PT school. Loma Linda is a Seventh Day Adventist school/hospital. They require every student to attend chapel once a week, and even though I have nothing against any religion, I didn't feel it was fair to be forced to go to church when I would be paying money to go to their school to learn about a profession, not church.

Anyway, that initially turned me off from the school itself, but within my denial letter from Loma Linda for PT school I learned about a new Master's program they were starting for Orthotics & Prosthetics. It is one of the few schools offering a Master's for this profession because up until now an Associates is really the only thing that was required.

At first I wasn't too interested in the program because I felt I had worked so hard throughout my educational career to do PT that I didn't want to just give up.

Well, back in January when I started my job, I met a girl who had started this same program. Her class is the very first class to be doing this program, and boy did I ask her a million and one questions about the program, the career, and everything else.

I also did some research on my own about the career to see if it really was something that interested me.

After much debate and tons and tons of thinking later, I decided that I needed to get in contact with someone at the school to learn more about the program.

I contacted the director of the program and he gave me basically all the information I needed and told me to apply. I was lucky I contacted them when I did because I literally had one week to complete the application process before the final due date.

I also scheduled a meeting to meet the director and the assistant dean to see everything in person. The meeting was scheduled about a week or so after I submitted my application, and basically right when I walked through the door, the assistant dean told me they just got the paperwork to go through for my acceptance.

WHAT?!?!?!?!?!

ME? I was just accepted into a Master's program!!! Definitely some of the best news I had heard in a looooooooooooooooong time!!!

After learning I was accepted I also learned that school would be starting 2 weeks later.

That meant ALOT of stuff had to be done before starting school, especially financial things.

I was soooooooo excited. They pretty much said they had accepted everyone they wanted for the program but they were going to make an exception for one more spot since they technically had the room because they were so impressed with my grades and how diligently I worked to complete everything in such a short amount of time and how well I followed up with them whenever I had questions.

So like I said, this Friday completes 3 weeks in my first quarter as a graduate student.

I couldn't be happier with my choice in career.

I have 18 new family members that I will be with for the next 2 and a half years and I am sooooooo excited to see where this all takes me.

It's definitely been challenging so far, with a few 13 hour school days, and I know it's only going to get harder, but I am so thankful to have this opportunity!!!

 

So with all that said...meet my new family :)

 

This is our entire class after we finished our first casting project for a wrist hand orthosis (WHO).

See why I love my new family :)

(I'm in the middle in the purple!)

 

This isn't that well known of a field yet (I didn't even know about it to begin with, I thought doctors did all this stuff). But once I finish school I will have the knowledge to be able to measure an individual for and orthotic or prosthetic, be able to make their device, fit the device, and modify the device. How cool is that?!

So please, if you have any questions about this field, don't hesistate to ask. I am more than willing to share what I know about this awesome profession!!!