Lee.org

Oh my, I’m nervous. I’d better start studying.

Why am I taking the GRE’s you ask?

I am applying to grad schools! My application to the Samuel Merritt University Master of Occupational Therapy program will be submitted in a few days. My application to the San Jose State University  Master of Occupational Therapy will be submitted at the end of this semester!

Here’s a photo from my commute last week.

Nice, eh?

I’m commuting on the SF->Sausalito ferry to my Occupational Therapy Center volunteership. I’m upping from once a week to twice a week starting next week. Right now I travel:
Home –> Bart to Embarcadero –> Ferry to Sausalito –>bike to office.
It takes about 1 hr 10 minutes, costs $6.85 with about 1.5 miles of biking each way.

I’m going to try and bike the whole route, which involves a 12.8 mile ride going over the Bay Bridge Golden Gate Bridge! It should take about 1 1/2 hrs each way.

I applied to the DMI (Diagnostic Medical Imaging) program at CCSF in August. They’ll get back to me in November with a Yay/Nay. Right now I’m pushing hard to get into an OT (Occupational Therapy) program at San Jose State. I’m working, taking prerequisite classes, studying for the GRE, and volunteering in OT (starting volunteering this week!) this fall! I apply in January. I’ll know a month or two later for entry in September!

And this week I worked for Kern a little buying and maintaining computers and did a full week of one-on-one teaching at the Crucible. I taught Simone Electromechanics, Arduino Microcontrollers, and Flame Effects! It was a blast!

How I know I have O+ blood:

One section of taking Physiology over the summer was on blood. I gotta say that pricking myself with that lancet by hand totally sucked. I’ve got to get better at that.

(Previously: Chemistry Money Shot)

I’m considering becoming an Occupational Therapist. If you are one or have a friend in the field, I would love to speak to them about it!

If I go for it, there’s a master’s degree in my future that may take two years or more to get, so I want this to be a solid decision. Comment or email me at Lee at Lee dat org!

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What is Occupational Therapy?
In brief, Occupational Therapy is concerned with helping people get back to doing whatever their “occupation” is, things like teaching an injured person how to brush their own teeth again, keeping an elderly person independent, and modifying classroom equipment for a disabled child. It’s pretty wide-ranging!

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If you’ve been following along, I’ve been gunning for an Associates Degree at CCSF in Radiography. This Occupational Therapy thing would be instead of the current path. Just about all the prereqs crossover to both programs. There is no guarantee I’ll make it into the Radiography program. 130 applicants –> 30 spots in Radiography. Megan suggests that Occupational Therapy is more engaging and more appropriate for me; besides, it pays better and might just take the same amount of time to complete.

Today I submitted my application to City College of San Francisco for their Diagnostic Medical Imaging Program. If accepted, I might spend 2 1/2 years learning how to be a Radiographer. Wish me luck!

I helped a friend connect with some new passions. – D. writes “Seriously, it’s funny how I’ve been stumbling around in my own little world on how to do music-light-flame art that can be interactive, rather than a passive audience, and here you’ve shown me a whole community working on PID (Physical Interactive Design) for Music.”

EDD problems resolved – I can take a few classes at City College as long as they don’t interfere with work at the Crucible. My classes are generally during the day and I teach generally at night. And most importantly, “job offers” at the Crucible are rarely “bonafide offers of work” since they are almost always contingent upon us having enough students.

Megan loves me :-)

I found a nice outfit for a wedding a few weeks ago – good clothes are nice!

I found a good physiology class – I had a teacher I didn’t jell with so I switched and it was awesome

I’m set to apply for Diagnostic Medical Imaging (DMI) in August

Megan’s suggestion to apply for an Occupational Therapy (OT) program is a good one, I’m checking it out

I know I don’t like Radiation Therapy (RTT) – My dad had suggested I look into it as a career; I went forward with allied health and just recently got to shadow some folks at CPMC Medical Center. Yow! That is not for me!

I converted the miles on a new credit card to dollars and I’ve got $500 free money burning a hole in my pocket

Not having a car for the last 3 months has been OK (except for hurting my knees on my bike! but I’ll figure that out)

If you are trying to “pick up” a class or two in the Bay Area, this guide is for you.

I took a Human Physiology class this summer at College of Alameda to fullfill a prerequisite for the programs I’m applying for in the fall. “Shopping” for a professor can be a daunting task. Here is how I did it and it worked out very well, after a long road.

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Find the class

This can be a nice trick depending on the program.  Equivalent courses are subjective. There is no definitive guide to what classes are  equivalent  to another. Go to the  counseling  department of the school you are trying to get into and ask. Here is a chart from City College of San Francisco from Spring 2012. YMMV!

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Find a school

There are several college systems in the Bay Area. Find the you can actually travel to. For example, I visited Merritt College and realized the 1 1/2 hr door-to-door commute from San Francisco by bus was a bother.  Here’s a list of local Community Colleges:

City College of San Francisco

• Several San Francisco campuses

Peralta Colleges  East Bay

• Berkeley City College
• College of Alameda
• Laney College
• Merritt College

San Mateo Community College District

• Canada College
• College of San Mateo
• Skyline College

Contra Costa Community College District

• Contra Costa College
• Diablo Valley College
• Los Medanos College

Foothill College

College of Marin

Chabot College

There is also the University of California system (UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco) and the California State  (San Francisco, East Bay)  system. I looked into picking up some Chemistry courses at SF State but the summer Chemistry course was $3,000 and it looked like a bother to apply (I didn’t actually try) so I bagged it.

And there’s online courses. Some schools offer intensive classes… like 5-8 weeks long instead of 16 weeks.

• University of Phoenix – $585 per unit
• American Public University – $250 per unit
• Walden – $1500 per course online
• Argosy University – They don’t offer individual courses online

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Choose an actual class. This ended up being a multi-step, iterative process for me…

Apply for the school, Find an open class, Find a good professor.

Applying for any individual community college in California is easy. Every school system has their own registration system. For example, College of Alameda is part of the Peralta System. When you apply at Peralta, they give you an ID you can use at any of the Peralta Schools.  You will be automatically accepted at any of the community college systems in 1-48 hours.  I’m registered as a student at most of the Bay Area community colleges.

If you want to see if a class is open or wait-listed or whatnot, you should apply and use the school’s student registration system. For example, the “outward-facing” system at  Diablo Valley College told me that their Physiology class still had seats available but the student system told me more correctly that the class was full with 10 people on the wait-list.

Often you will find yourself trying to get into an already-full class. If you really want it, talk to the professor. When he says “no”, keep showing up anyway. As other students drop the class in the first 2 weeks, the “no” will turn to a “maybe”. By the 2nd or 3rd week of showing up and showing your true passion for the class, you’ll probably (hopefully!) get accepted into the class.

Finding a good professor is a good trick. The quality of professors in the community college system is a mixed bag. You are the only person that can decide if you like a professor. There are innumerable qualities a professor might have that make or break the experience for you. Here are some of the big ones for me:

Attitude. Clarity of expression. Easy to understand accent or tone – if you can’t hear them, you are sunk.  Cultural differences – if you can relate to a professor’s expressions, you will have an additional learning channel.  Appropriate amount of collateral material – some professors drown you in materials, some give none.  Ability to lecture well, ability to answer questions, ability to offer alternate explanations.  Is the professor watering down the material to make it easier? Does he push you hard? Do you like or resent how they are pushing you?

Ok, so how do you find a good professor? Here is what I do:

1. Read the comments they receive at  RateMyProfessors.com
2. Find the average grade they give at MyEDU.com
3. Ask my friends for teacher recommendations
4. Google them, see what else they teach, what their passions are.

Integrate all this info into a best guess.
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For the summer Human Physiology class I just took, it went like so:

1. My  counselor at City College said that “Bio 4” at Peralta Colleges would    be equivalent to Physio 1 at City College.
2. I found 4 acceptable summer Physio classes.
   1. Merritt College class had an OK rated (according to RateMyProfessors and MyEDU) teacher. But the campus was 1 1/2 hrs door-to-door.
   2. College of Alameda had a “Hybrid” class with Prof Reza Majlesi. Most of the lectures were online, he got poor marks at RateMyProfessors and on average gave a “C” according to MyEDU (both bad signs).
   3. College of Alameda had a course with Prof Peter Niloufari. He got good marks with RateMyProfessors and on average gave an “A”. But his class was apparently full.
   4. Diablo Valley College had a course with a well rated professor, but it was at the far end of the BART line and likely full.
3. I went with Professor Majlesi’s class. It was terrible. At the end of 2 weeks of summer school I felt that I hadn’t learned anything and was on track to fail… like get an “F”. Panic ensued.
4. I checked in with Professor Niloufari, explained my situation and he said he’d take me if the school would allow the transfer.
5. I went to the Dean’s Office who said, “Oh, you want to switch from the online class to the in-person class? I don’t blame you! Sure! Here are the forms.”
6. It was HARD catching up to the rest of the class but I did. I learned a boatload and I got an A!

Here are good snapshots comparing my two Physiology professors. I spent time in both classes. Guess which teacher I ended up liking better (hint: I believe Professor Niloufari is a great teacher)

When you are trying to pick up a lot of classes and you aren’t sure which ones you will get into, make a spreadsheet like this to help you. It might seem boring and redundant to copy all the classes from all the schools into a spreadsheet but it was super helpful for me to keep things clear.

I made sample plans and my daily schedules with this. With a printout of this in your pocket, you are unstoppable!

Good luck to you!

PS. You should also read my post  How to Get Your Classes

I’m taking prerequisite classes to get into a Radiography program, that’s an allied health profession doing things like taking diagnostic X-ray, MRI, CT scans and the like in hospitals. My first choice is CCSF (City College of San Francisco), they have one of the best reputations of any Radiography program in the country. I’ve been volunteering at CPMC Pacific Campus since December 2011 in the Radiology Department and it’s been going well. The biggest bother right now now is that the program gets like 120 applications for 30 spots each year and pretty much as long as you meet their 2.5 GPA requirement, they put your name in a hat and draw names randomly! So I’m preparing myself to apply elsewhere too!

I had been considering doing a Radiation Therapy program instead. A Radiation Therapist is the person who zaps somebody who is getting “radiation” when they have cancer. But I did some volunteering at CPMC and it’s not for me. I’m glad I found out!

Onward!

After a semester of hard work, (and an ‘A’ for my effort!) here is much of my study clan from Human Anatomy class, drinking at Zeitgeist May 30th!

Kyle, Melissa, Julie, Lauren, Jeremy, Anne-Marie, Pam, and I – Anatomy Study Clan!