Professional Development Opportunities: KC #8

 Today I was challenged to think about the future, beyond my entry-level OT degree. Since I will be graduating with a master's degree in occupational therapy, I often get the question of whether or not I will continue my education for my doctorate. This is something I originally had planned on doing considering my love of learning and ambition to obtain more and more knowledge. However, after being in the program for these 2 years I have been so excited to graduate and begin practicing as soon as I am registered and licensed. Due to this readiness of wanting to gain clinical experience I decided that continuing my education directly after was not something I wanted to do. I am also the kind of person who never likes to say "never", so who knows, there could be the chance that I decide to get my backpack back out and be a student again. If I did decide to become an OTD it would be out of my love of knowledge and the excitement of possibly being able to spread that to OT students. We shall see where life takes me! 

Besides my pending physical agent modalities certification, I am also interested in assistive technology and driving rehabilitation. Assistive technology is such a growing field as the world of tech is continually advancing. AT can make our clients' lives so much more accessible and allow them to participate in meaningful occupations. As far as driving rehab. goes my classmates and I had the opportunity to listen to a guest speaker who is a driving rehab. specialist. It was so interesting to hear about her experiences in determining if or if not a client is safe to operate a vehicle. She also showed us a lot of great adaptive equipment for vehicle modifications that intrigued me. With all of this being said, there is no telling where the future will take me! I have a lot of varied interests and there is no telling which one I will end up pursuing. No matter what, I will continue feeding my need for learning more and continuing to grow my knowledge base.