What do you want to do when you graduate?

What a dreadful question? To clarify, people want to know what setting (acute, subacute rehab, outpatient) or population (peds, geriatrics, ortho) I want to work with. 

I've been getting this question a lot lately since I'm 4 months away from graduating. Ugh! The thought of it leaves a knot in my throat. In previous years, I would say that I have 3 more affiliations to go… 2 more affiliations to go ...I'll probably figure out what I want to do, closer to graduation. Nope. 

I am 2.5 weeks away from completing my 3rd affiliation of 4. And I still don't know where I want to go. I came into the PT school with the desire to work in geriatrics or pediatrics. That still stands. My mentor reminded me about my path after undergrad. I had a dead-set plan to work for a certain company after college and I never got the offer. She said its better to find out from my professors which setting the majority of the graduates from my program move on to. Sadly, I got a lot of round-about answers which means they don't have any statistics either. So I looked online for about 20 minutes and found stats on Bureau of Labor Statistics. I interpret that 33% of PTs work in outpatient/private practice (they are much more vague and say offices of physical, occupational, speech therapists and audiologist). 

From my previous affiliations, I know that like pediatrics and geriatrics. My school faculty advises that students should work in a hospital to get exposure to treating a myriad of diagnoses. But one person that I met at a PT networking event said that acute rehab is the way to go because you get a full hour/5 days a week to really "do PT" and make a difference in someone's rehabilitation. Statistically,  I will most likely work in an outpatient clinic.  

So when people ask me what I want to do/where I will work. My answer is… "I guess I will go where there are jobs available. I'll let you know when I graduate and get a job." 

Picture from CrazyTownBlog. 

Note: The link connects to a nice post about a different view on graduation. Read it if you have a minute. 

Email Addresses

In PT school, I had to use my school email address for everything - communications with my professors  and clinical placements, etc. The faculty gave a lecture on receiving emails from inappropriate personal email addresses. I laughed and thought they were over-exaggerating. Then my classmate proceeds to tell me a story about when one of his classmates (when he was working on his pre-reqs) put her email address on the blackboard because she was coordinating a mass email from the professor. Her email address was along the lines of ….xsexykittenx.

This is an important note. People will laugh at (and judge you by) your email address. Have a personal one and have a professional one. I recommend never having any professional email addresses with the x in the beginning or end of the your name, unless there is an 'x' actually in your name. Its just a bad road that you want to avoid.

Picture from ecards.

Manners Matter and so does Spelling and Grammar!

When I was a retail buyer in 2008, I had to hire 2-3 assistants for my company. I got hundreds of resumes a day through email. It was also the year that the economy tanked. It was a part-time job filtering through those resumes on top of my regular job. I don't have an HR experience. How am I supposed to figure out what the ideal candidate looks like on paper ?! 

My boss helped me tremendously. She said if there are any spelling or grammar mistakes in the email, cover letter or resume, reject it. Simply as that. She said that's the person that is going to be representing our company. Would you send in a resume or cover letter with spelling or grammar mistakes [add glaring look]? With that simple criteria, I was able to cut the submission load by half, maybe more. 

Manners matter. Spelling and Grammar Matter. Watch what you send to people. Most programs have a spell check. USE IT! 

Picture from FYIHigh.

Meeting new people

My friend was online dating for about a year when she was tasked on the "just say yes" journey. She hadn't been meeting any men that she clicked with so she said she would be more open minded about the selection process and accept any date, just as long as the guy wasn't creepy. Also, she said she would blog about her experience to a small group of us. I asked her what was the most interesting thing that she learned from this experience.

She said that since she had to blog about it, she had to find out at least one interesting thing about the person that she was on a date with. It helped with conversation. Everyone has at least one interesting fact and if you set out to find it out, you will be pleasantly surprised by the conversation. This is great advice for meeting new people especially in the clinic! Puts a new spin on meeting new people [and less pressure on myself] - in search for the person's most interesting attribute. I can dig it.

Picture from Natacha Maheshe's blog.

Finished the academic portion of my curriculum in Dec!

Its weird. I have been so anxious about this post. I was done with the academic portion of my DPT program in early Dec. I've slaved over books, notes, lectures and labs for the last 2.5 years (and another year on top of that for pre-requisites at community college). I passed some hard ass classes in my last semester and my comprehensive exam that was a cumulation of all my course work. HOLY SHIT, I'M ALMOST DONE! I was so high. Now I'm in clinic. And I'm getting nervous again. In 6 months time, I will be treating patients on my own. I remember scoffing at my professor when she told us a story about how she has a mini breakdown on her first day of work as a full-time therapist. Look who's laughing now. Not me.

Picture from the Boston Globe.