- Joined
- Oct 14, 2014
- Messages
- 37
- Reaction score
- 4
When I was applying for OT school, I decided not to apply to the most prestigious in-state school because I thought their class sizes were too big. I think they had 40 people, but split their hands-on labs in half.
Because I was applying late, I applied to a ton of schools on OTCAS that I didn't know much about. I ended up getting accepted to a school out of state that had 50-60 students in a class and rarely split them for labs. They rely heavily on team based learning, and almost all our tests are multiple choice.
The idea behind multiple choice tests was that the NBCOT test was hard multiple choice questions, so that would be how they test you. Unfortunately, to make it hard, they rely on memorizing exact details of wording from a slide or lecture, and memorization is hard for me to do. Conceptual understanding is much easier.
Class sizes make a lot of things more difficult. The biggest one this semester has been the professor demonstrating something at the front of the classroom, like transfers or manual muscle testing. Because our classrooms are big and spread out, people at the back can't see. Even if we stand up, we can't see the lower half of the body. If we are trying to do group discussions, it's hard to hear over the noise in the classroom.
I do have ADHD and depression/anxiety, as well as some physical health issues. My main way to cope with the ADHD is to rely heavily on reading textbooks and getting an understanding before I go into class. Unfortunately, several of our instructors don't use textbooks at all, and for the classes that do, it can be detrimental to spend time reading instead of studying the slides. That seems to be the case in the class where I'm making a C at the moment. While we are allowed to make one C in the program, I don't want to use it up on something that isn't necessary.
I was worried about getting into OT schools because I had a low GPA in my undergraduate degree in an computer/math/engineering-related field. I'm an older student that is changing careers. Schools that screen out applicants based on GPA won't consider me. One of our instructors recently gave us the stats for students who were accepted for the next class, and the lowest GPA for any accepted student was equal to my overall GPA including graduate school plus all the pre-requisites for OT school that I did more recently. Anybody who looks at "undergraduate GPA" will see a 2.7 and laugh at my odds of getting in.
I know that I have a lot of anxiety about writing papers. A little bit about just regular assignments, and a lot about formal research papers that have to keep track of all the quotes.
Our program requires substantially more credit hours each semester than most schools do, about 15-19 hours. Last semester, with 19 hours, I wasn't able to spend any time reviewing class notes, and ended up doing a lot of cramming. I didn't get a solid understanding of many of the classes I was taking, and that has hurt me this semester. As a disability accommodation, I was able to get a reduced courseload, down to 10 hours this semester. However, I didn't know until afterwards that while the department chair agreed to this, most of the professors felt it was a bad idea.
I also found out that when I asked for help on a topic, or made suggestions that I felt would improve the class, such as being easier to see, that it was being interpreted as whining or being critical. The department chair said that the instructors don't want to tell you what parts are more important, because they feel all of it is important. So when I studied 50% from the book and 50% from the slides, and the tests were 95% from the slides, I got screwed.
So anybody currently in school, what has been your experience with textbook use, class size, team based learning, etc?
Because I was applying late, I applied to a ton of schools on OTCAS that I didn't know much about. I ended up getting accepted to a school out of state that had 50-60 students in a class and rarely split them for labs. They rely heavily on team based learning, and almost all our tests are multiple choice.
The idea behind multiple choice tests was that the NBCOT test was hard multiple choice questions, so that would be how they test you. Unfortunately, to make it hard, they rely on memorizing exact details of wording from a slide or lecture, and memorization is hard for me to do. Conceptual understanding is much easier.
Class sizes make a lot of things more difficult. The biggest one this semester has been the professor demonstrating something at the front of the classroom, like transfers or manual muscle testing. Because our classrooms are big and spread out, people at the back can't see. Even if we stand up, we can't see the lower half of the body. If we are trying to do group discussions, it's hard to hear over the noise in the classroom.
I do have ADHD and depression/anxiety, as well as some physical health issues. My main way to cope with the ADHD is to rely heavily on reading textbooks and getting an understanding before I go into class. Unfortunately, several of our instructors don't use textbooks at all, and for the classes that do, it can be detrimental to spend time reading instead of studying the slides. That seems to be the case in the class where I'm making a C at the moment. While we are allowed to make one C in the program, I don't want to use it up on something that isn't necessary.
I was worried about getting into OT schools because I had a low GPA in my undergraduate degree in an computer/math/engineering-related field. I'm an older student that is changing careers. Schools that screen out applicants based on GPA won't consider me. One of our instructors recently gave us the stats for students who were accepted for the next class, and the lowest GPA for any accepted student was equal to my overall GPA including graduate school plus all the pre-requisites for OT school that I did more recently. Anybody who looks at "undergraduate GPA" will see a 2.7 and laugh at my odds of getting in.
I know that I have a lot of anxiety about writing papers. A little bit about just regular assignments, and a lot about formal research papers that have to keep track of all the quotes.
Our program requires substantially more credit hours each semester than most schools do, about 15-19 hours. Last semester, with 19 hours, I wasn't able to spend any time reviewing class notes, and ended up doing a lot of cramming. I didn't get a solid understanding of many of the classes I was taking, and that has hurt me this semester. As a disability accommodation, I was able to get a reduced courseload, down to 10 hours this semester. However, I didn't know until afterwards that while the department chair agreed to this, most of the professors felt it was a bad idea.
I also found out that when I asked for help on a topic, or made suggestions that I felt would improve the class, such as being easier to see, that it was being interpreted as whining or being critical. The department chair said that the instructors don't want to tell you what parts are more important, because they feel all of it is important. So when I studied 50% from the book and 50% from the slides, and the tests were 95% from the slides, I got screwed.
So anybody currently in school, what has been your experience with textbook use, class size, team based learning, etc?
