HAPS is a society focused on the teaching and learning anatomy and physiology, but educators are just half of this equation. We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for our students. Check out the fifth post in a series of HAPS blog posts featuring A&P student extraordinaire, Becca Ludwig.
One semester I had an assignment that was unusual. I was tasked with creating a bucket list and then crossing one thing off of the list by the end of the semester and write a reflection paper about it. This was an odd assignment as it had nothing to do with the occupational therapy world, but as I was creating the list for the assignment I found that a bucket list had everything to do with the OT world and life in general.
A bucket list provides a way for goals to be set and the motivation to obtain them. Many students get bogged down with the stressors of the semesters and completing the requirements to get their degree. I see it in my peer’s faces. The worry about what will happen tomorrow, how I will get a job, who they will marry, how they will pay off their loans. The list is endless. Those are valid concerns, but what they are forgetting is that they have their whole life ahead of them to sort out those details. Many students lack sometimes the ability to see that there is more to life than school. If I were to ask 100 people on my small campus what is one thing that they want to accomplish the top three answers would probably be:
- Get married (there are more females than males on campus. The pickings are pretty slim!
) - Get a degree
- Find a job
Those are all practical things to want and desire, but my question is what is the one thing that they will look back on and say they accomplished it? Life is not textbook in manor. No one can tell you how to live your life, you can decide. Why not take the challenge to do something for yourself and accomplish something that you never thought you could? The bucket list challenge was one of my hardest assignments because I was challenged to do something for me. I challenge you HAPSters to do the same thing to your students and watch how the students react. This assignment might change everything.