I met Erica at the very beginning of my tutoring career for chemistry tutoring. Her hard work and motivation was very inspiring. I had no doubt Erica would be able to achieve her dreams of becoming a physical therapist, and she did! Her hard work and resilient spirit are infatuating.
1. Why did you decide to become a Physical Therapist?
I ran track & field when I was in grade school and when I had injuries, the physical therapists that I saw seemed to have a very mechanical explanation to why I was injured. It was fascinating.
2. What are the challenges you encountered on your way and how were you able to overcome them? (especially post bac). For me, the biggest challenge was getting through prerequisites in order to get to grad school. I went to a huge school for my undergrad (50,000 student population), and it was challenging for me to take pre-calculus in a 600-person classroom. Same with Chemistry. Instead of thinking outside of the box, I decided that it was too challenging and changed majors because I figured graduate school would be similarly difficult and I would never survive. After working in corporate finance during the 2007-2008 market crisis, I decided if I could survive that, I could survive anything. So I took the prerequisites one by one, at night after work, sought out tutoring, got in to grad school and eventually changed careers.
3. What school did you attend and how did you like it?
I earned my DPT degree at SUNY Downstate Medical Center. I didn’t really love it there for a lot of reasons.
4. Where do you work right now and what do you think about your current role?
I work in outpatient private practice and I think it’s great! I love being able to give patients the tools to help themselves recover from surgery, injury, etc.
5. Any advice you have for students who want to pursue Physical Therapy?
If you really want to be a physical therapist, don’t let the prerequisites be a weed out for you. It is really just a few classes. They are intimidating for someone who doesn’t have a strong background in math and the sciences, but if you seek the right help (like tutoring) you can get through them, then you can get to the fun stuff like learning about bones and muscles :)
At Transformation Tutoring, we love to help our students achieve their dreams. We feel so happy seeing our students built careers they love!