Yay! The first semester is completed and two more semesters to go! Time flies when you are having fun with online studies. These Therapeutic Recreation courses certainly have kept me busy. Learning Therapeutic Recreation online has been interesting but also very challenging with only an occasional easy ride.
The “Variations in Health: Focus on Aging” course has been the most challenging course by far.
In the middle of studying the course material I received a phone call from Finland. My mom had fallen down in her Care Home and hit her head severely. It was so hard for me not to able to be there for her.
The material in this course was about dying. For instance, the concept of euthanasia and how to cope with issues of dying and the ending of one’s life brought forward some deep issues for everyone. In our discussion forum we needed to post ideas and thoughts of dying and euthanasia. The posts and stories revealed so many memories and reminiscences with family members.
Our teacher was exceptional and sensitive with the subject matter. She had a genuine sense of caring and was very encouraging and understanding. The reading material was very interesting but after while the subject matter started to affect me. I struggled with my emotions afterwards when the course was over. Studies and reading of dying was exhausting and such an emotional roller coaster. But the topic also introduced and assisted me to understand more of my future Therapeutic Recreation profession and the aspect of facing this reality we would rather ignore.
My classmates come from very different backgrounds, education and age. Therefore, classmates find their own favourite course that is different from others. To me, “Health promotion: Managing Risk & Staying Healthy” was a fun and easy curriculum. I am a health promotion fanatic. The topics were close to home and kept me engaged. The reading topics were definitely lighter than the previous course.
We started the second semester two weeks ago with a course titled “Conceptual Foundations for Therapeutic Recreation.” Wow! This material is indeed engaging and motivating. In the previous Semester we explored studies of anatomy, communication skills, aging and dying. The first semester was such a fast paced mix of emotions, personal development and self-awareness.
However, without the knowledge from the first semester, I would have been more apprehensive and less appreciative of the importance of “Conceptual Foundations for Therapeutic Recreation.” Now, I feel that I am ready to bloom and grow. The past two weeks have been such an eye opener about the TR profession. It seems that the more I study, the less I know and that to me creates an enormous respect for the profession. The teacher for this course is a pioneer of the TR profession. She has solid knowledge of necessary TR skills.
Be ready to brush up your writing skills! Stenberg College has high expectations of academic writing. It is very essential that we polish our writing skills NOW! So we can become competent with writing proper documents and assessments of our clients. Academic writing skills is a challenging venture to me because English is my second language but I also find that learning strong writing skills now is most rewarding.
Check out this video of our Therapeutic Assistant Diploma Program (Gerontology Specialization).
