How to Become an OT, in 12 Easy Steps (warning: Takes 10 years!)

1. Take the Johnson O'Connor test to see if you have what it takes to become a veterinarian. Gratefully learn that you have zero spatial visualization ability. Feel insulted by the finding that you would make an ideal occupational therapist ("What is that, teaching people underwater basket weaving?"). Ignore their recommendations.
2. Go overseas for 2 years. Freelance as a journalist and dog trainer in Tokyo. Return to Seattle.
3. Upon return, convince skeptical but supportive husband that you need to spend $300 to live in a tent for 5 days, attending chicken training camp in Sequim, Wash. with animal trainers from around the world. (See me, clutching chicken in photo below, with two campmates from Japan!)
ODDLY ENOUGH, THIS WILL TURN OUT TO BE THE PIVOTAL STEP.


4. At chicken camp, befriend a shy woman sitting next to you. When she says she edits books for the Delta Society, which promotes the use of animals in human health care, impulsively blurt out, "You guys should hire me!"
5. Edit a series of books for Delta while pursuing a postbac degree in zoology. Work for a vet in summers long enough to decide that you don't want to be one.
6. Get your dog certified as a therapy dog simply to test out the process for a book you are editing. Volunteer to visit patients at a local spinal cord injury clinic.
7. Decide that what the OTs at the SCI clinic do looks pretty interesting. Marvel that if you had a human health care credential like they do, you could get paid to take your dog to work and problem solve all day.
8. Visit the UW Masters in Occupational Therapy program. Take 10 pages of notes while sitting in on a day of classes. Resolve to become an OT. Realize belatedly that this is what the Johnson O'Connor test told you to do five years previously. Say, "Doh!"
9. Start school when your small persons are 10 months old. Be the first person to ever attend your program half-time. Squeeze in most of the coursework for an infant mental health certificate in the gaps between your classes.
10. Refer so often to your animal training experiences that your supervisors at a local children's hospital nominate you to give a talk to a statewide association. Develop this talk* carefully; you will be giving it often over the next few years.
11. Graduate after 3.5 years of a 2-year program. Along the way develop several new interventions for children with feeding problems, win some prizes (two Maddak awards and a staff pie-baking contest at the hospital), and start your own business. Write a belated thank-you note to Bob Bailey, one of your chicken training camp instructors. Reflect on the value of pursuing your interests wherever they lead you.
12. Thank everyone in your life who has helped you throughout this process (you all know who you are). Via your blog.

*"Chickens to Children: Applying an Animal Trainer's Toolkit to Pediatric Feeding Therapy"