Alumna Profile: Jillian Hamilton OTD '18
Jillian Hamilton, OTD ‘18, has known she has wanted to work with kids her entire life. “I was a camp counselor, I babysat, it was my niche. I’m kind of a big kid myself.” Today, she works with kids ranging from pre-school to middle school as an occupational therapist for a military school and loves her ever-changing job.
“I love where I work, and I’m very lucky. Initially, I wanted to be a teacher, but after my mom pointed out how unhappy I would be with such a stagnant position, and showed me occupational therapy, I changed my mind.”
Jillian attended Scranton University and after graduating with her MOT, she never imagined she would go back to school. That was until one of her peers reached out to tell her about Chatham’s Doctor of Occupational Therapy program. “At first I said no because I was intimidated. But she convinced me to do it and we did it together and now we’re co-authors on an article we’re submitting on adaptive climbing and social skills.”
Jillian found the program to be challenging, yet rewarding. She recalls that after a tough first semester, she found the rest of the program to go much more smoothly.
“The small cohort of students I worked with and getting to pick my capstone were the best parts of Chatham’s program. The capstone gets built as you go so you aren’t on your own. Bits and pieces of the process were implemented during each semester, which gave all members of the cohort an opportunity to hear about my niche. I’ve been using so much of the work I did during my time there to get my article finished now. It’s very organized, it makes sense, and it’s well worth it.”
Jillian took full advantage of picking her own capstone in her fields of interest, creating an adaptive climbing program aimed toward improving social skills in children with developmental delays.
“I started rock climbing 5 or 6 years ago and fell in love with it. The most eye-opening thing about this project was the limited existing research on adaptive sports, no one had done adaptive climbing in terms of social skills before. What many people don’t realize is that there’s so much more to climbing than the strength; there are social skills and perseverance that go into it as well.”
Jillian worked with participating children for six weeks on building social skills and climbing activities. At the end of the program, the children showed impressive improvements in both areas. She has continued her work post-graduation and is currently in the process of publishing an article about her study. “I want to continue to encourage people to get into community sports. I am still helping to run the continually growing adaptive climbing program. We now have field trips and are working toward getting an adaptive climbing team together.”
To anyone considering Chatham’s OTD program, Jillian says she has found her professor, Dr. Lape’s, advice to be useful. “Trust the process. Pick a topic that really drives you and something that you are really interested in and are inspired by. Getting through the first semester is the hardest, but you just have to keep pushing through. Believe in yourself and think about how much you can contribute to the wonderful field of occupational therapy.”
If you’re interested in the challenging and rewarding world of Occupational Therapy, Chatham offers both an Entry-Level (ELOTD) Overview program and an Occupational Therapy Post-Professional (PPOTD) Overview. Check out the #OTChangingLives initiative spearheaded by our OT Class of 2022 for concrete ways OT principles can help everyone in daily life.