Public health or occupational therapy...

[mmhchan]

After being an undergrad for many years, you'd think I know exactly what I want to do with my life. I do know, but I am stuck between 2 graduate programs, both of which I am interested it.

 

Occupational therapy.

I entered university believing that I want to make a difference by helping individuals get better. I wanted to study rehabilitation sciences and go into physio, nursing, etc after undergrad. I was also introduced to the idea of OT. My sister is an OT, and she was doing her Masters at University of Toronto as I was starting my undergrad. She says she enjoys it. However, after being in the work force for a couple years, she found that the jobs were not exactly what she had in mind. Often times she would doing doing tasks that were not in her job scope, but that may have just been the hospital's organization.

 

I like the idea of OT. As a person who loves both science and art, I like how it is a fine mixture of both. Knowledge and evidence-based research combined with designing assessments to help the individual attain their goals and ideal life. I like how as an OT, I am able to work with individuals, one-on-one, to be able to get to know the person professionally, connect with them and help them. I have volunteer experiences where I had the chance to interact with clients of a senior day care center, and I found it to be fulfilling. I like being with people and working with them.

 

Public Health

I never really got into the idea of pursing a degree in this until my last year at UW. My courses introduced me to epidemiology and toxicology. It was very interesting for me. I was able to see how I would be able to make a difference in a more 'macroscopic' sense--to perhaps review and change policies or establish programs and promotions to help with the population and global health (albeit in the distant future). Perhaps, I could go into the field of toxicology to help protect individuals from exposures to toxicants and hazardous materials and mprove environmental quality!

 

I have acceptances to both MPH and MSc(OT) grad programs. My decision is to decide between the two programs...

Maybe it's cause I don't know myself or what I want enough, but I can't seem to make a decision. Does anyone have any advice?

 

I have been accepted to MPH at Simon Fraser University (SFU) and my top choices for OT schools are UT and McMaster.

 

Thank you in advance, and sorry for the long blurb. I feel like I need to explain myself due to the odd nature of my dilemma...

 

- MC

[nugget]

Here are some questions you can think about....

 

-Do you prefer helping people one on one? How important is it to have interpersonal interactions with your clients, to personally guide them through the healing process and witness the changes that they go through?   

 

-Do you want to impart change on a bigger scale? Do you like the prospect of creating policies and programs that will positively impact the lives of clients on a much larger scale than if you were in a profession that required you to help clients one at a time? Will your work be equally fulfilling with less personal contact with the people that you are trying to help?

 

It really is a personal decision; both sound like great career prospects. But if the first set of questions sounds more like what you want, I'd go into OT. If you are more into administration and management, I'd go into Public Health.

 

If you haven't already done so, you may want to look into how strong each job market is in the part of country you want to live in as well as salary expectations.

 

Best of luck!

Edited May 17, 2013 by jenste