Jenni: Year 3 – here we are!

So here we are, 3^rd year OT students settled back into lectures…

But it’s not quite what we’re used to!

We’re currently in the process of applying for role emerging placements. This is a really exciting opportunity for 3^rd year students as it gives us the chance to work independently and show services just how great OT is and what it can do for them.

The placements are in settings that aren’t seen as traditional OT role and there’s a great variety this year. Some of the placements include working in a mother and baby unit, a Help for Heroes setting, the RNLI lifeboat crews around the country and a job centre; not where you’d expect to see an OT!

I’ve applied for a Dementia Care Initiative placement which is all about helping people with Dementia in hospital as it can be very stressful for them. The applications are in so wish me luck!

So what else is going on?

This year is a lot more independent then before. We are now only in lectures two days a week, meaning we have five day weekends! Sounds great right? But this means we have to be A LOT more independent in our work.

Our main ‘project’ for third year is a research proposal that we have to hand in at the end of the second semester. That seems a long time away but already we are all busy working on this, trying to get the literature together to back up our proposal. The great thing is that we have scope to focus on whatever interests us the most, rather than a specific assignment title or question. This has been great for me as I can work on something that I’m really interested in and passionate about…the only downfall is that I don’t get to carry out the research and find the answers that I’m now so interested in!

Within one of our modules we also get to choose options depending on where we want to focus our learning. I’m in the ‘recovery in mental health group’ and so far this has been really eye opening.  A great thing about this option is that as well as the OT coming in to lecture, we have the privilege of having a service user teaching. Having his perspective really helps our learning as we get to see it from a service user point of view, rather than just the OT.

The other choices are Communication in Learning Disability and Therapeutic use of animation in chronic pain; all of them sound great and I wish I could have chosen them all!

And all that’s left to say is…

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I’m sure to most people it still seems far too early to be saying this but I won’t be blogging again until 2014 so have a great break and I’ll speak to you next year!

Jenni 🙂