Changes: My Road Back to School

I initially started this blog back in 2009, when I took a social media class when I was a candidate for a Master’s of Science in Integrated Marketing at New York University. It was one of our social media projects and loved how engaging and “new” this whole blogging business was. My blog was originally called “Diaper District” because at the time, I was a mom of two very young kids in Lower Manhattan. A few years later, I changed the name to Triple Threat Mommy because it described what I was: a triple threat — a mom and wife, a full-time fashion marketing director working 5o+ hours a week, and a part-time graduate student.

When I graduated six years later, I questioned myself. Was I still a triple threat?

Four years later, the answer is clear. I still am a triple threat, because I am going back to school. Again.  

I was in fashion buying & marketing for 15 years, and most recently in social media and marketing consulting for three years. As I said in my Instagram post, I’m following something that I’ve been feeling for a few  years now and its to get out of the so-called digital clouds and get back down to earth with one-on-one interaction with people. Andrew Sullivan’s last blog post, his note to his readers really struck a chord with me. He wrote, “The second is that I am saturated in digital life and I want to return to the actual world again.” I read that and said, “Yeah, me too.”

Why physical therapy? I’ve always been an active person. I took dance when I was in elementary school into high school (that really showed me how to properly align my body),  to team sports in middle- and high-schools and just plain old exercise to get this mommy-body back to pre-pregnancy form. I also have my own personal experience with physical therapy (I had a 4-finger diastasis recti after my second c-section) and that as helped made me realize that health care — specifically a doctoral in physical therapy (or DPT for short) — is where I want this second half of my career  to go. I still have 25 to 30 years left of working, and I want to do something that I really, really, really enjoy and one that truly makes a difference in someone’s life.

And occupational therapy? This is another area that I am interested in because OT helps people get re-engaged with everyday activities, whether it be doing homework, going school, playing, studying, cooking, working on a computer etc. An occupational therapist helps people with tools and exercises so that they can do those things that matter to them most. OT is interesting to me because there is real-life application to what you are doing with your patients, there is a direct link and impact to their everyday life. You literally make life easier for your patients.

So, back to school I go. I have to take my science pre-requisites that means Bio I and II, Chem I and II, Physics I and II as well as Anatomy and Physiology I and II and a bunch of psychology courses. (Makes you want to vomit, right? Yeah, me, too.) I am taking it slow and easy with one semester of chemistry now at a community college, then hopefully moving to a 4-year college to finish off my pre-reqs. (Schools prefer prospective students to take pre-reqs at a 4-year, so that’s my next hurdle.)

A Big Favor: Another pre-requisite that I need to complete before applying to a DPT program is many, many hours volunteering in a physical therapy setting, so if you have any contacts in hospitals, nursing homes, private practices, rehabilitation clinics, etc. Please send me a note! Thank you!!

So, I’ll still be writing here at Triple Threat Mommy, probably about the craziness of going back to school and understanding what the heck my chemistry professor is talking about. I may also write about products and services I love in this new life that I am carving out. We shall see how it goes.

On a very superficial note, I’m also thinking of getting a new pair of Warby Parker glasses to make me look smarter in class (and, oh yeah, my eyesight is going and my prescription has changed). What do you think?

 

Ok, enough procrastination of doing my chemistry homework! Back to studying!

What do you think of all this? Have you gone back to school as a parent, an older student? What’d you make of it?