So this is what being a masters student feels like!

The dreaded word.... Pebblepad!

I am posting a little late as I have been extremely pre-occupied and a little under pressure with a fast approaching deadline for my first ever marked level 7 assignment! Eeekk!

The assignment is a 4000 word online Pebblepad portfolio based on my case study Joan Rivers... 4000 words and split into 4 sections... doesn't sound too bad right? .....WRONG! I am quickly discovering the challenges of masters level writing and I found I initially discovered this whilst managing to write 2000 just in ONE of the sections! Far too much waffling! There is so much I could write in each section because Joan's life was so interesting and issues ranging from health and well-being, to Joan Rivers' many occupations, physical development and psychosocial developments etc etc. I'm quickly discovering that "being masterful" is being able to pick out the key relevant information; questioning and critiquing (NOT DESCRIBING) it appropriately and to the point. This is very much easier said than done! We have also had a very theory heavy few weeks learning about frames of reference and models of practice, lots of reading and lots of presentations, lots of independent learning, lots of planning and lots of writing... I feel like everything has just kind of gone "boom!" and I have very quickly realised... Wow, so this is what a masters student feels like!

Occupational Model of Health

Last week my learning set presented our Occupational Model of Health and here it is :)

It is focused on health, well-being and everything that constitutes "healthy" participation within occupation. I like it because it is colourful, and as an OT I would like to enable people to have colourful lives :)

Last week we also had a guest speaker who is a graduate OT from the university involved in research regarding the Model of Human Occupation. She ran a class about MOHO and it was so interesting to see how it can be used in practice - it helped me to understand it all. She could relate to us as students as she'd been sat there only a couple of years ago herself and we could relate to her. It was inspiring to think... in a few years, that could be me! It seems a million miles away at the moment but in two years time I will have just graduated as a qualified Occupational Therapist! 

Placement update!

I found out my next placement for PP1 in January! This time it is a 5 week placement where I will be based with another Community OT team! If I'm honest I was a little disappointed initially as I will need to move there for 5 weeks and I have only ever experienced OT in the community so far and would have liked to have got a hospital placement a little more out of my comfort zone. However, I feel I will gain a lot of really good experience to build on my current experience of community OT. 

This week.

Aside from writing, I have been working with my learning set to plan a group intervention session which some of our class will participate in next week. The intervention is to relate to case study Joan Rivers and has to be something she would be interested in at a specific time in her life where she may have needed OT treatment. We have utilised the skills of the people in the group and I have really enjoyed being able to use my skills from being an activity leader in art and being able now to apply my knowledge of OT into it to plan an creative art intervention for the group. Stay tuned for more details and how the intervention goes next week! I'm actually looking forward to it! In preparation, the tutors this week held different intervention sessions for the students to participate in which included: Creative writing, art and drama. I really enjoyed it! And gave us some great ideas and provided us with some "tools in our OT tool box" to use in the future. - Not just that, it was a distraction from pebblepad!

I actually feel quite positive this week regardless of feeling very worried about my assignment. I'm really truly thankful for the other students on the course and in my learning set. Everyone is so supportive of each-other at times of stress, we're all in the same boat and I'm looking forward to the next 2 years of this roller-coaster ride, all in this journey together, Members of my learning set always make me smile and I can honestly say, I laughed until my belly hurt in our learning set meeting this week - you guys are great to be around! So, yep. I'm feeling quite lucky. I'm lucky for this opportunity, (to be that stressed my hair falls out) lucky that I'm around lots of awesome people and lucky to be learning an awesome profession :) 

I'm off to bed with a cup of tea and to watch this for homework purposes....

Joan, you really make a stressful assignment much more interesting and fun. 

Goodnight,