General Tips:
- Visit the Pre-Health portal for a comprehensive look at the pre-health resources here at UW
- Learn more about the various careers in healthcare by visiting ExploreHealthCareers.org
- Subscribe to the Health Career Interest page to stay up-to-date with relevant news on health-related jobs/internships; it also includes several resources regarding preparing and applying to graduate health programs.
- Engage in this self-paced online course to learn about the significant steps in the application process for health professional programs.
- Schedule an appointment with your academic advisor* (UAA/Departmental/OMA&D) to discuss course planning.
- Schedule an appointment with a career coach* to discuss your career interests and goals, plus how to reach them.
*Disclaimer: The University of Washington does not have dedicated pre-health advisors, so staff members you meet with will likely not have deep or special insight but rather more general knowledge of requirements and recommendations.
Choose from one of the following for more information:
In addition to courses, students should actively gain clinical exposure. Students are encouraged to get both professional-facing (shadowing) and patient-facing time. Both are instrumental in demonstrating that students are a good fit for the profession with capabilities to be a good therapist as well as being able to work and empathize with patients. We encourage students to start documenting their clinical experiences so they can reflect on them later in the application process. One way to get clinical experience in an occupational therapy setting is to become an Occupational Therapy Assistant. OT Assistant training programs are available locally at several community colleges, such as Green River College in Auburn, Bates Technical College in Tacoma, and Lake Washington Institute of Technology in Kirkland.
Leadership can be demonstrated in many ways. Students are encouraged to reflect on what leadership looks like in healthcare and how their involvement in clubs, student programs, volunteering, employment, research, and athletics, may help them demonstrate their capacity to invest their time and talents in their communities and build up those around them.. The Community Engagement & Leadership Education (CELE) Center on campus is a great resource!
Letters of Recommendation are vital to a student’s OT school application. Professional schools vary in how many letters they require and from whom but will usually require at least one science professor. Establishing relationships with faculty, TAs, mentors, principal investigators, and supervisors early on can help with creating strong letters of recommendations.
Required & Recommended Coursework
Note: Admission to OT Masters and Doctorate programs does not require a specialized exam. (To become a Certified Occupational Therapist, students must pass the NBCOT exam after their graduate studies.)
Every occupational therapy school has different expectations in terms of coursework that is required or recommended. We encourage students to start researching occupational therapy school requirements to better inform themselves of what specific classes they need to take. Students may need to exceed the requirements of some schools to meet the requirements of other schools. The following courses listed below are courses that are required by most occupational therapy schools as listed by the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA).
Most require:
- General Chemistry (1 year)
- Anatomy & Physiology 1 & 2
- 1 Developmental Psychology course
- 1 Abnormal Psychology course
- 1 Sociology or Anthropology course
- 1 Statistics course
Some require (and many recommend):
- English composition
- Medical Terminology
- Math
- Additional behavioral science course
