And now for some of the catching up...I mentioned I decided to make a career change and settled on physical therapy. Never in my life had I considered a career in the health sciences, except perhaps when I was 11 and thought it might be cool to become a Vet. Turns out, I'm not much into blood, hence why I never considered medical school, or even nursing. Where the idea came from actually started with Michael Vick. You all know that story, so I don't need to revisit it, but when all that happened, I started feeling like I should be doing something that contributed more towards society. I thought about working with animals, but decided to take some time to think about things. **On a related note, I became, and am still an active volunteer at PAWS Chicago, where I have since adopted a dog (more about her later).
The desire only grew stronger and I started considering other options more seriously. The first real idea I had was to become a personal trainer and eventually open my own business. I've always been passionate about sports and fitness and felt I could help people transform their lives and bodies. In order to become a personal trainer, really, you just need to become certified by one of the main certification bodies, which means simply passing a test. But, I would want to have a strong educational background too, so I looked into some Master's programs in kinesiology. During that process, somehow I came across physical therapy, which I saw as a logical extension of the personal training idea, but a higher level. I checked out what it would take to become a physical therapist, and I figured if I was going to school for a minimum of 2 years for a M.S in Kinesiology, that frankly, I might as well go to school for 3 years and pursue a Doctor of Physical Therapy degree. The deciding factor came down to career prospects. Yes, a PT degree pretty much locks you into becoming a physical therapist, but there are so many diverse settings and patient groups you can work with. It is a more specialized degree, but I felt it would open more doors and provide more direction than a Master's degree in some other field. The more I looked into physical therapy as a profession, the more attractive it became. Some recent publication (I forget which) named physical therapy 2nd only to clergy in terms of highest job satisfaction, as reported by workers themselves. The job market is strong, and PT's make pretty good money. It will be a challenging 3 year program, but I feel confident that I will be successful. Am I 100% sure this is the right decision? No, I wish I could say I was. But, 90% is good enough for me. If this doesn't work out, I'll figure something else out, but I'm not planning on that happening.
Applied - I applied to 4 schools: University of Indianapolis, Northwestern University, University of Illinois-Chicago, and University of Florida. Of the four, UIC was my top choice, based on a combination of cost and strength of the program. According to some US News and World Report rankings, UIC's program is #15 in the nation. For what its worth, Northwestern is #7, Florida #15 and UIndy #41. Had none of these worked out, I would have been scrambling for programs who had due dates after January 1st, 2012.
Accepted - UIndy and UIC. I was put on an "alternate" list at Northwestern. The shitty part about that is when I was in high school, I applied to Northwestern's journalism school, which pretty much everyone knows is the best in the country. I thought I might want to be a journalist (one of about five different majors I had, by the way), so I made Northwestern my "reach" school. I was a decent writer, but definitely not Medill material, especially coming out of high school. I'm sure you can figure out where the story went. Flash forward to 2011 and I thought I had a good shot at getting accepted to Northwestern's PT program for a few reasons. First, they admit a larger class than UIC (70-ish compared to 54 at UIC). Second, I had done just about as well as anyone could expect in terms of all the metrics they look at, such as undergrad GPA, prerequisite GPA, GRE scores, etc. Just about the only thing I could have done differently was have a more relevant undergrad major. Most PT applicants majored in kinesiology, biology, or something along those lines. But, as I learned, most classes of applicants had a least a handful of "career changers." I even felt I had a very well written personal essay this time, compared to God knows what I wrote when I applied to Medill. So, yeah, I was disappointed to hear I was on an alternate list. I'm not ashamed to admit that getting into Northwestern would have been all about the name. The Northwestern PT program is a part of the Feinberg School of Medicine, and something about that had a nice ring to it. I told myself if I got in, I would buy a t-shirt just to wear around the house, even if I didn't decide to go there. Silly.
Anyways, I am still waiting to hear back from Florida, but that was mostly a backup in the event I didn't get into UIC or Northwestern. My co-worker Dan, will surely be disappointed that I'm not going to be a Gator, but going to Florida doesn't make a whole lot of sense at age 30. Age 22, maybe, but not age 30.
Deposited - UIC. I told Northwestern they could suck it. Really it was more like "Please take me off your alternate list as I will be accepting an offer of admission from UIC." I will be a Flame! UIC DPT Class of 2015! I'm mostly over the Northwestern thing because the odds of me actually going there were slim. UIC offers a much better opportunity in my opinion, and costs about 1/3 as less! I'll do awesome work under the UIC name.
Enrolled - not officially yet, not until August, and not until I finish my last two prereq' (Chemistry and Physics).
So, there ya go. Those few things make up pretty much of the last year of my life, give or take a few other noteworthy events, which I'll talk about eventually. It seems like getting accepted to PT school was the end of a pretty long, grueling process, but I know its just the beginning.
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