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Who is this guy

So, I think before I get in to other topics, it’s a good idea to give a little more info about me. Whenever I am coming across someone new online or there is a guest speaker coming in to class, I like to have an idea of their background and accomplishments. First impressions are important and especially important when there is so much information out there and so many different people sharing their ideas. I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks this way . So, I feel it is only fair to give you some background info.

** As a disclaimer, this is just me providing some facts about myself so that you get to know who is writing all this nonsense a little bit better, that’s it. There are people ahead of me in terms of what they have accomplished during PT school. There are possibly people who have accomplished less. There are a bunch of people also, I’m sure, who have a very similar resume to me. Playing the comparison game is not a game to get consumed in and not one I intend to play here.

• I finished my undergraduate degree in Kinesiology from the University of Maryland, College Park in December of 2011 (sup though Terps) and didn’t start PT school until August of 2016.
• From 2012 to 2014 I worked full-time as a personal trainer at a small, private personal training studio working with mostly your every day guys and girls who wanted to lose some weight, get a bit stronger, etc. I was certified through ACE for personal training. I also handled the studio’s nutrition programming (along with individual client’s plans) and was certified with Precision Nutrition. From 2014, until I started school, I worked as a clinic assistant (TECH LYFE) at a pretty big out-patient sports medicine clinic in Maryland. During this time, I was taking the GRE as well as some pre-requisite classes that I had not completed yet (didn’t think I wanted to do PT school when I was in undergrad, so not only did I have pre-reqs to finish, it was chem, physics, etc. FUN).
• I’m thinking I will do a more specific/comprehensive post at some point about the exact details of my PT school application (grades, reference letters, observation hours, work experiences, etc.), but for now a quick idea is my cumulative undergrad GPA was somewhere around a 3.5-3.6, science GPA was like a 3.4, maybe? GRE was like right at 300 maybe a few points higher.
• I love sports and was pretty serious about baseball growing up, which ultimately helped steer me towards kinesiology in undergrad and personal training after graduating. I started to get frustrated with my job as a personal trainer and around this time also started getting really interested in Kelly Starrett’s mobility wod website, FMS, etc. I found their ideas and principles started helping some of my personal training clients and I started to think about PT school as a possibility. More on this at another time.
• I can tell you for a fact, because I’m looking at my school account right now, that my current cumulative GPA for PT school is a 3.817 and my GPA last semester was a 3.914. What does that mean? probably doesn’t really mean shit. Still haven’t had a patient ask me my GPA at any of my clinicals.
• I am the clinic coordinator, this year, for our program’s pro bono clinic. Our university has a partnership with a local community health center, which allows for us to have our pro bono physical therapy clinic located at the health center, which is about 5 minutes away from campus. Other physicians and nurses work there as well, and we are referred patients by doctors working within the health center’s network. We’re there 2 days per week, from 2:00-6:00 pm treating ortho patients and have had up to 14 patients scheduled to come in on a given day. This semester we just added 2 additional days & times for treatment of neuro patients.
• I’ve taken one continuing ed. course so far while in school with a buddy of mine from my class. It was Postural Restoration Institute’s Myokinematic Restoration course.
• Up to this point in school, I have had 4 part-time clinicals (one each semester, the 4^th having just started this semester) and one full-time clinical (for 6 weeks last summer).

So that’s me right now. My main goal is to just become a little bit better of a therapist each day and hopefully that leads to a career that I consider successful. To quote one of the great wordsmiths of our time, Wale Folarin, “…my only fear is mediocrity.” I agree with him. More to come…