Okay so I just finished my second year of college at Boston University. Trying to make decisions about grad school.
In high school I decided I wanted to be an OT. My parents really stressed the importance of choosing a major that will quickly get me a well paying job and OT seemed like a good fit for me despite having to get a master’s. The career still does seem like a good fit for me, however I’ve also realized that OT programs are expensive especially if I want to go to a great school for it i.e Columbia.
However, I also have a great passion for psychology and am considering PhD programs in Clinical Psych. These programs are appealing to me because they are often funded, so I could work my as off and get a degree from a great school for little to no cost.
I guess what I’m struggling with is whether or not a career as an OT will be fulfilling for me because I really love reading, writing about, and researching psychological theory. I love thinking deeply in general. However, I also love working with children and helping others, and I do enjoy human anatomy courses.
Sorry if this post is difficult to respond to, but any advice is greatly appreciate!
This is where you gotta stand up for yourself. You are going to be paying for grad school, not your folks, and it’s true that with clinical psych PhD programs they pay YOU to go to school. You get a stipend and our TAs make about 40k a year at the Univ. Calif. system. It’s a 5 year commitment and at the end you either work in academia as a professor, carry on and work towards licensure as a clinical psychologist, or you try and do both. I don’t know what OT is by the way, but don’t choose a career based on what your parents want, please please don’t. Now a PhD in psychology is not like an MD where anatomy is something you need to study, though you will study the brain and body to a degree. You have 1 life, you could make plenty of money down the road a few years as a psychologist. I’m a little bit older than you, I’m in my 30s and went back to school. I can’t imagine letting what my parents want guide my decisions with studying psychology or not in school, it’s totally irrelevant. I know when I was younger it seemed a lot more important, but soon you will feel even more like a totally seperate individual from your parents, and that is normal. Your parents will ultimately respect your boldness, though they may resist it now, that’s their problem not yours. You aren’t their project anymore, you aren’t their puppet, you are an adult individual who sounds highly capable, smart, and driven. Most important thing is you spend your short time alive doing what You care about, what turns you on, and this also is a well paying and honorable profession. Good luck making this decision, talk to an academic counselor!
“However, I also love working with children and helping others, and I do enjoy human anatomy courses.”
Your statement seems to be imply that OT offers more opportunity to work with children and to help others. If so, that certainly is not accurate. If you are interested in working with children, you can specialize in child clinical psychology. While OT might offer more opportunity for direct “hands-on” with clients, certain areas of clinical psychology, e.g., developmental disabilities, can provide equivalent opportunities.
Also, given your interests in both OT and psychology, perhaps you could combine those interests in a clinical psychology career. For example, outside a strictly mental health focus, it is possible to specialize in rehabilitation psychology; clinical neuropsychology; health psychology/behavioral medicine; developmental disabilities; or, gerontology. These are all specializations that share aspects of their client populations and clinical problems with OT.
I find it questionable that an expensive, private university, e.g., Columbia, would necessarily provide better OT training or better employment opportunities than a less expensive public university.
It may help if you could do some job shadowing this summer. I have had students who thought they wanted to go into PT until they shadowed a PT and realized the day to day work was too slow and frustrating for them. I’m not suggesting that you would necessarily find OT work boring, but exploring the profession a bit might help you determine if you share your parents’ passion for OT:)
Regarding clinical psychology: if you decide you want to pursue a Ph.D. in clinical psych or child clinical, you will need to have an OUTSTANDING application. You’ll need a fantastic GPA, impressive GRE scores, internship experience, substantial research experience, and enthusiastic letters from psychology faculty. If you look at the APA’s Graduate Study in Psychology book, you can see eye-opening stats regarding the percentage of applicants who were accepted to the program, the average GRE scores, etc. You will quickly see that getting into an accredited clinical psychology Ph.D. program is extremely difficult (some say even MORE difficult than getting into medical school–but I’m not sure about that). Child clinical can be even more difficult, and requires lots of hands on experience working with children (my top student (perfect GPA, great test scores, did an honors thesis and participated in an APA student research program) who had also spent every summer working with children of migrant workers for a Head Start program was told she didn’t have enough experience with kids–she ended up taking a full-time job working with kids at a women’s shelter and then got into one child clinical program!). I am not telling you this to cause you to panic, but as a rising junior you need to know what needs to happen in your final two years of school if you want to be a competitive applicant.
Another possibility is examining a counseling Ph.D. program which is slightly less competitive (but still extremely competitive compared to many psych graduate programs). I also recommend that psychology students who are interested in working with kids consider a Masters in Social Work. There are also masters programs in psychology, but you’d want to make sure the cost of the program isn’t unreasonable given what your salary might be (and you’d want to be sure that you could get licensed with whatever degree you selected).
I have had a number of students apply to OT schools recently–only my top students are getting into those programs (and sometimes even the top students are not getting in), so be aware that having an outstanding record, test scores, and additional experiences required for OT are going to be needed if you want to pursue OT.
First of all, it’s early days. You don’t have to make any definite decisions yet, although you do need to do specific things to help you prepare.
As someone already suggested, I would also suggest that you do some job shadowing and volunteering. Volunteer at a mental health clinic or hospital over the summer, and/or with an occupational therapist at a rehab clinic or hospital. You will need the hours anyway to apply to grad school, and they are a good way to ensure that you understand the demands of the career (at least at a basic level) and know which one is best for you.
However, I wouldn’t pick one career over the other solely for the funding.
Also
You don’t have to go to a fancy-pants private school to get an occupational therapy degree and work as an OT.