How to Become an Occupational Therapist With a Bachelors Degree in Psychology?
Question by .: How to become an Occupational Therapist with a bachelors degree in Psychology?
I am very interested in becoming an occupational therapist. What is the best path for me to take if I already have a bachelors degree in psychology. Also, I am in the military and I am 22 years old.
Best answer:
Answer by jannsody
Well, we salute you for being in the military :) Most OTR (occcupational therapist, registered) programs are at the master’s degree level and some are at the doctoral degree level. If you already have a bachelor’s degree in psychology, the master’s degree may suit you as opposed to getting a doctorate unless wanting to teach at the university level or perfom research. The OT programs, however, are quite competitive and there are only a certain amount of seats available per school and many applicants have a 4.0 (or close to that) gpa in prerequisites and/or cumulative gpa.
Please do try to make an appointment to observe/job shadow OTs in the various departments that they might work including the local hospital — physical rehabilition center that treats those with traumatic brain injury (TBI), spinal cord injury (SCI) and/or those recovering form a stroke (“brain attack”) which is a type of brain injury, hip fracture and/or hip or shoulder replacement — pediatric (inpatient and/or outpatient) hospital — nursing home/long-term care facility — outpatient therapy center — psychiatric facility and others.
It’s best to check with the admissions office of the individual college program Before actually taking the prerequisites as not all courses may transfer. (Most allied health programs do Not accept ‘human anatomy’, for example, but instead ‘general anatomy & physiology’ so please do check beforehand as to not spend more money than needed ;) Just about all OT programs require that the applicant have completed a certain number of volunteer hours and have letters of recommendation for those in the field too.
For general career information: http://www.bls.gov/oco and can type into search.
If still interested, please only consider accredited OTR programs: http://www.aota.org
With schooling, please steer clear of those online, for-profit schools, if even, for prerequisite/liberal arts courses (may have ‘brick and mortar’ buildings and may be ‘accredited’) such as penn foster, ashworth, strayer, university of phoenix, devry, ashford, capella, everest, kaplan, ITT tech, walden, sanford brown, high tech, ashwood, keiser, remington and others as they are merely out to ‘make a profit’ (and course credits may Not transfer to other schools): http://www.ripoffreport.com and can type into search.
For US colleges: http://www.utexas.edu/world/univ
For possible volunteer opportunities: http://www.volunteermatch.org and the local hospital or nursing home may have a need too.
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Tags: stroke victims, brain injury, spinal cord injury, allied health, occupational therapist, physical rehab, doctoral degree