Clarkson’s Occupational Therapy program taps into the University’s core strengths of engineering, science, entrepreneurship and the arts to provide students with an expansive knowledge base.

This specialized MS helps students embrace the field’s essential points:

  • Engaging in a meaningful occupation and finding purpose are profound curatives.
  • A thorough knowledge of human anatomy and psychology — tied to an appreciation for creativity — lead to recovery and unique paths of productivity.
  • Neither disabilities nor perceived differences can violate an individual’s dignity or self-determination.

We make you a successful occupational therapist by:

  • Establishing an anatomical and physiological basis for occupational performance.
  • Exploring dysfunction across the life span.
  • Examining conditions from a physical, psychological, social and occupational perspctive.
  • Providing deliberate occupation-based interventions to groups within the local, rural community.
  • Engaging in research to enhance the profession.
  • Discovering social determinants of health and occupational participation.
  • Utilizing technology and innovation to enhance occupational performance.
  • Providing innovative and traditional fieldwork opportunities.

Concentrations

Students will have the opportunity to pursue one of three Clarkson occupational therapy specialty tracks of study, which will allow them to become immersed in advanced study in their area of interest.

  • Technology for Health-Related Quality of Life Track: Students will become clinicians who can design and implement new products utilizing cutting edge technology to assist with client participation in desired activities.
  • Occupational Therapist as a Researcher Track: Students will become clinicians who can design and implement research studies that enhance the profession.
  • Innovative Practitioner Track: Students will become clinicians who can use innovative principles and interprofessional collaboration to design new products, new programs, or a new way of delivering occupational therapy services.

Curricular Goals & Threads

Our curricular goals for our program:

Goal 1: Design and deliver humanistic, ethical and high-quality, individualized occupational therapy services to individual clients and their family/caregivers in both individual and group treatment.

Goal 2: Students will understand and be able to respond with occupation-based programs to contemporary and global issues affecting health, wellbeing and disability, with specific focus on unmet and emerging needs in rural and underserved populations.

Goal 3: Integrate innovative, technological, imaginative art and educational resources into program planning, design, management and intervention.

Goal 4: Demonstrate the ability to reflect on science and technology, including their relationship to society, their impact on the environment, and occupation and demonstrate the capacity and commitment to grow both as an individual professional.

Goal 5: Collaborate skillfully with clients, interprofessional team members and non-professional colleagues, families and community members and demonstrate the important contribution of occupational therapy by doing good work.

Our curricular threads are:

  • Professional Identity
    Students will value and assume an identity of service and contribution, by promoting occupation and participation in multiple contexts through the identification of barriers to and providing supports for occupational roles and performance patterns.
  • Innovation
    Students will develop the ability to meet the needs of local, regional and global society, including a focus on rural communities, through research and scholarship.
  • Technology
    Students will learn to engineer solutions through technology including telehealth, assistive technology and virtual contexts.
  • Education & Research
    Students will develop problem-solving abilities through science-driven practice and the use of practice-based evidence, with a focus on occupation as both intervention and outcome.
  • Interprofessional Practice
    Students will exhibit strong leadership and collaborative skills as they assume roles of advocacy and activism for both clients and the profession.

Coursework

Term I -- Fall

  

Course #

Course Name

Credit Hours

 

OT 501

Basic Science: Gross Anatomy

4

  

OT 511

Basic Science: Development and Occupational Performance across the Lifespan

2

  

OT 521

Basic Science: Mental Health and Occupational Performance

2

  

OT 531

Foundations in Occupation Based Practice

3

  

OT 541

Foundations in Research

3

  

OT 551

Foundations in Defining and Understanding Occupational Performance

3

  

OT 591

Professional Seminar A: Professionalism in Occupational Therapy

2

  
 

Total

19

 

  
       

Term II -- Spring

  
 

Course #

Course Name

Credit Hours

  

OT 503

Basic Science: Neuroscience

4

  

OT 533

Basic Science: Applied Kinesiology for OT’s

2

  

OT 553

Basic Science: Cognition and Occupational Performance

2

  

OT 563

Bridging Science to Adult Conditions and Assessments

2

  

OT 583

Experiential Learning Lab I: Adult Assessment and Intervention Lab

3

  

OT 603

Engineering Health Through Creativity, Craft and Analysis of Occupation

3

  
 

                                                                                                               Total

16

  
       
       

Term III -- Summer

  
 

Course #

Course Name

Credit Hours

  

OT 605

Engineering Pathway to Participation through Technology

2

  

OT 595

Professional Seminar B: Interprofessional Practice and Emerging Practice

2

  

OT 630, 631, 632

Engineering Your Pathway through Scholarship I

2

  

OT 700A

Fieldwork Experience

2

  
 

                                                                                                               Total

8

  

 

  

Term IV

  
 

Course #

Course Name

Credit Hours

  

OT 537

Bridging Science to Pediatric Assessment

2 

  

OT 557

Bridging Science to Upper Extremity Rehabilitation

2

  

OT 567

Bridging Science to Adult Neuro Conditions and Assessment

2

  

OT 587

Experiential Learning Lab II: Adult Neuro Assessment and Intervention Lab

3

  

OT 597

Professional Seminar C: Specialty seminars in OT

2

  

OT 640, 641, 642

Engineering Your Pathway through Scholarship II

2

  

OT 700B

Fieldwork Experience

2

  
 

                                                                                                               Total

15

  
       
       

Term V

  
 

Course #

Course Name

Credit Hours

  

OT 539

Professional Practice, Leadership, Management & Activism

3

  

OT 549

Synthesizing Evidence and Practice to Become an Evidence Based Practitioner

 3

  

OT 579

Experiential Learning Lab III: Group Dynamics across Practice Settings

3

  

OT 589

Experiential Learning Lab IV: Pediatric Intervention Lab

3

  

OT 599

Professional Seminar D: Innovation and Advanced Cases

2

  

OT 650, 651, 652

Engineering Your Pathway through Scholarship III

2

  
 

Total

16

  
       

Term VI

  
 

Course #

Course Name

Credit Hours

  

OT 705

Fieldwork Level IIA

9

  
 

Total

9

  

 

 

 

 

  

 

Term VII

 

 

  

Course #

Course Name

Credit Hours

  

OT 710

Fieldwork Level IIB

 9

  
       

 

                                                                                                                    Total                 9

 

                                                                                                                Total Program Credits     __92___

Specialty Tracks

Students will have the opportunity to pursue one of three Clarkson OT Specialty Tracks of study, which will allow them to become immersed in advanced study in their area of interest.

  • Technology for Health-Related Quality of Life Track: Students will become clinicians who can design and implement new products utilizing cutting edge technology to assist with client participation in desired activities.
     
  • Occupational Therapist as a Researcher Track: Students will become clinicians who can design and implement research studies that enhance the profession.
     
  • Innovative Practitioner Track: Students will become clinicians who can use innovative principles and inter professional collaboration to design new products, new programs, or a new way of delivering occupational therapy services.

Fieldwork

All students are required to complete supervised fieldwork experiences as part of the Clarkson Occupational Therapy program. Fieldwork provides an opportunity to complement your academic preparation with the application of theory and course content to practice, to further develop and refine clinical skills, and to establish professional relationships with supervisors and future colleagues. Fieldwork consists of Level I placements after the first two semesters of instruction and Level II placements following the completion of all coursework. The student fieldwork manual and related information (i.e. fieldwork dates and site data) will be available to students through our Clarkson OT E-Value website, as well as the OT 700, 705 & 710 Moodle sites.  

Fieldwork experiences occur in sequence throughout our program and are designed to give the student the best learning opportunity. Students must participate in the fieldwork experiences in the appropriate sequence (refer to the curriculum). Students must complete all Level II fieldwork requirements within one year after completion of the academic coursework. If circumstances arise and a student needs to complete fieldwork outside of the one-year timeline, students can petition and the case will be reviewed by the faculty. Approval is needed to extend fieldwork placements. 

Student Fieldwork