About Me

My name is Teresa, I am currently a third year BS/MS Occupational Therapy student at Dominican University of California. I am from San Jose, CA. My passions includes cooking, playing games, "Do It Yourself" home decor projects, and watching movies. My inspiration for projects comes from browsing websites such as Pinterest, Facebook, and HGTV. Much of my inspiration also comes from friends and family that I hold near and dear. During my 2nd year at Dominican, I served as a Resident Assistant (RA), an experience that completely changed my overall college experience. Being an RA provided me an opportunity to meet new people and help extend a branch out to help first year Dominican students find their way through college life away from home. Although I am no longer serving as an RA, I carry those experiences and skills that I picked up along the way to help others around me and apply them to my own fieldwork experiences.

Why Dominican and Why OT?

I decided to come to Dominican because I love the idea of being in smaller class sizes and bonding with the small community Dominican offers. When I first set foot on the Dominican campus 3 years ago, I immediately fell in love with the atmosphere and made connections with people who are now one of my closest friends. I loved the quiet serene environment that Dominican offered and appreciated the current students that helped me navigate the waters of the Dominican Occupational Therapy BS/MS Program.

I actually stumbled into Occupational Therapy on accident. I originally intended to become a nurse but I landed an internship

The important areas of knowledge for an OT to have at an “entry level” OT includes being able to evaluate the client by creating an occupational profile history and performing necessary assessments if needed. Entry level OTs should also know how to include meaningful occupations, the arts and crafts, and take client factors into consideration in the intervention process. Throughout the intervention process, OTs should also be able to review their intervention plan and assess whether or not it is targeting the anticipated outcomes. Dominican’s curriculum supports this by building in courses such as foundations, fundamentals, and offering fieldwork at various facilities in the Bay Area.

Things I Learned During My Journey Through OT School

Practicing wheelchair and walker transfer to shower for Fundamental Skills and Assessment Class during open lab sessions

Splint making activity for HMA (human movement analysis) class led by Professor A. Virzi. I made this one to fit my right arm. This is called a "cock up wrist splint"

Attempting to put myself in the shoes of a wheelchair user to brainstorm optimal method to transfer clients to the shower via shower bench from their wheelchair.

During my journey through the Dominican University BS/MS Occupational Therapy program, I learned that I was a hands on learner and that I learn best when I color coat my notes and create drawings. This method of learning and studying helps me easily recall information quickly and use it to apply to practices.

For the "Human Movement" class in particular, I learned that the key was to learn the fundamental components of each structure of the body such as where the muscle originates and inserts. I can apply those concepts by visualizing how each component of the body moves and how diseases and injuries can affect a client's occupations.

samples from my notebook

Future Plans and Goals

In the upcoming years in the OT program, I look forward to taking the course assistive technology, human movement, and the two courses on “Occupations in children and adolescents”.

I look forward to taking these particular courses because I want to help develop assistive technological devices that will enable children and adolescents engage in occupations such as ADLs, IADLs, Play, and Education.

I hope that by the time I graduate from Dominican, that I will have developed the skills to present in front of large groups and have my works published to the American Journal of Occupational Therapy site.

As an occupational therapist, I hope I can help create and design more assistive devices that will help children with disabilities play outside and be independent within their homes. In 3 - 4 years I hope to be practicing OT in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit or in the Pediatrics ward of a hospital somewhere in the bay area .

As a long term goal, I hope to continue my education by going back to school to earn my doctorate in OT after establishing myself as an experienced OT in the field. I believe that it is important to gain work experience as a practicing OT to apply to my post professional education and use my experiences to contribute to the profession.

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