Occupational Therapy

 

What is an Occupational Therapist (OT)?

 

I had absolutely no idea was an OT was when I first started looking into what I wanted to do. Here is a basic breakdown of what I learned:

• OTs "provide the skills for the job of living to help people lead productive and satisfying lives"
• OTs consider an occupation to be anything a person does to occupy themselves
• Depending on what the problem is, the occupational therapist can help you to solve it by:
  

  1. helping you overcome your disability
  2. adapting the material or equipment you use, or
  3. recommending changes to the environments where you do your occupations

• For more information, you should click here

 

 

Applying to Occupational Therapy

 

I applied for my Master's of Occupational Therapy this year (application due mid January, 2014) at Queen's, McMaster, Toronto, and Western. There are no mandatory courses to apply; you just have to have a four year undergraduate degree from university. One drawback I found to applying was that it was quite expensive...it cost me over $500 just to apply to those four schools!!

 

All applications are done through ORPAS. Each school has it's own set of requirements and looks for different things in their applicants. At McMaster, they only look at the GPA of your final two years of undergrad. The top-ranked 300 applicants are invited to an interview, and they pick 65 that get in from their. For Toronto and Western, your two final years are also looked at for your GPA, but you have to do a bit more on the application. There are two essay questions, two reference sheets that have to be filled out, and a personal CV that has to be submitted. Queen's looks at all four years when it comes to your GPA. On the plus side, there are no interviews for these 3 schools.

 

For this year's application, the questions were:

 

1. Clearly describe your reasons for pursuing a career in OT and how your personal experiences and background have contributed to your preparation for this career choice (maximum 5000 characters).
2. Demonstrate your understanding of the profession of OT by identifying 2 current or emerging trends in Canada's healthcare system and discussing how occupational therapists are well positioned to play a leadership role on healthcare teams (maximum 5000 characters).

 

I received an interview for Mac (it's in 2 weeks!) and find out about all OT acceptances on May 16th. Fingers crossed!