From a B.A. in Speech Language Pathology to Becoming an Occupational Therapist; Change is Good!

Everyone thinks college is a time for you to pick a career and decide what you are going to do with the rest of your life. This is true in a way, but it is also a time for you to find yourself and decide who you want to be as a person in the future. Day 1 of my undergrad career consisted of my switching majors from elementary education to speech-language pathology. Going through some of the pre-requisite psychology classes, I also decided I wanted to be a psychology major, so I added that in my second year of undergrad. In addition, I added on a certification in Deaf Studies. I didn’t know what I wanted to be, so I was just going to do everything. During my last year of undergrad, I applied to 7 different graduate schools in order to be a speech-language pathologist. When graduation day came in 2010, I was not accepted to any of the graduate schools, despite my good grades and great GRE score. This turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to me. I never really felt 100% committed to speech pathology, so not being accepted to grad school was a blessing in disguise. I found Occupational Therapy while observing a speech pathologist and decided that is what I was meant to do. I loved all of my graduate classes and I truly enjoy going to work every day and helping those get back to their everyday activities (i.e. occupations). I am excited and happy to share my experiences and my journey to becoming an Occupational Therapist during this presentation.