Hi all, my main goal is to become a physical therapist and I’m majoring in physiology. Would UCSB prepare well for pt school and is the city of Santa Barbara good for internships, jobs, etc for physical therapy? Thanks.
In October you were posting that you were going to be a civil engineer. Now its a physical therapist. What this says is that you probably haven’t spent much time exploring any career, not enough to decide if its right for you. So suggestion number one is to volunteer at a local PT office this summer so you get exposure to the field. Experience is actually an admission requirement for many programs and while what you can do right now as a volunteer is limited at best, spend 200+ hours doing it this summer and you’ll have a good idea if its really a fit for you.
Second, your question indicates a lack of understanding what colleges do, especially a big public U. Colleges do not “prepare you”. They offer courses that are among the requirements to apply to PT school (go see http://www.ptcas.org/ProgramPrereqs/ to learn what the courses you need are). But the real heavy lifting is on your shoulders. Do you study enough to do well? Do you find volunteer and paid positions in the field? Do you get to know some profs so you get good letters of rec? Do you take part in clubs? Do you show leadership? Lots of kids are expecting their college to “prepare” them for med school, PT school, etc, and they are going to be sadly disappointed. A passive attitude, thinking someone else has it all mapped out for you and all you have to do is show up and comply is not one that tends to lead to success.
And it turns out that at the end of March you were going to go into business
I wouldn’t waste much time worrying about whether UCSB is going to “prepare you” for PT school until you settle on what it is that you really want to do.