The Maddening World of Prereqs

One of the first things I did after deciding to pursue OT was look at the national professional association's website. In the United States, occupational therapists are represented by a 40,000-member group called the American Occupational Therapy Association, or AOTA for short. The website has some good information under the "Students"/Prospective Students tab, including a list of schools offering degrees in OT in the United States.

There is a university about an hour away from where I live that offers a master's in occupational therapy (MOT, although I've also seen it abbreviated as MSOT). I'll call this university BCU, or Big City University. Unfortunately, a college that is very close by, an easy commute, does NOT offer an MOT. I'll call them Local College (LC).

In 2007, the entry-level degree for occupational therapy changed from a bachelor's to a master's degree. So a master's degree is the minimum qualification needed to work as an OT. Most schools do not have a formal pre-OT bachelor's track. People can get a bachelor's in whatever they like and then apply to OT school. However, to ensure a candidate has at least the basic knowledge necessary to do well in a master's program, MOT programs require people to have completed certain undergraduate courses before applying. These courses are commonly known as prerequisites.

Are you with me so far? Good. 'Cause here's where it starts to get a little flaky. Each school requires its own unique set of prerequisite classes. So the set of courses you take to apply to School A may not work at all for School B. There is no standardized set of prerequisites (prereqs). THIS IS ANNOYING.

Now, to really mess things up, these prerequisites are often upper-division (junior/senior) classes. You can't just waltz in off the street and say "Hey, sign me up for Abnormal Psychology. It's one of my prereqs." You can't take Abnormal Psychology until you've taken Intro to Psychology. I suppose that's understandable if you're 18 and don't know diddily about anything, but let's get real--are you really going to fail Abnormal if you haven't had Intro?

Tune in next time for more on prereqs, prereq-prereqs, and other tidbits of insanity!