Tips & Techniques

Why I Chose to Pursue Physical Therapy as a Career - By Our Summer Intern Michael

Denise Smith 
 • 
July 11, 2018
Why I Chose to Pursue Physical Therapy as a Career - By Our Summer Intern Michael

By: Michael Weyde

Today I’m going to talk about my decision on how I chose to pursue the career path of being a physical therapist. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life for a really long time and didn’t truly decide till the end of junior year in high school. I job shadowed at many different places and different careers but when I shadowed at Smith Physical Therapy and Running Academy that’s when I knew that I could see myself doing this as a career. I’ve always like helping others and interacting with people so this would be a good path to choose. I also was very intrigued by my anatomy class in high school. From that class I had an idea that since I liked anatomy so much and bio that I would do something in the health/medical field but I just didn’t know what. Another key factor in deciding my career path was how often I myself have been to physical therapy for various injuries. Going through the process myself and seeing what physical therapists do really inspired me to want to be like them.

Now that I had my future career in mind I had to find the next steps to follow. Where to go to college and where to find an internship to get the observation hours required to go onto grad school. I looked at many different colleges, but the one that I chose that fit my price range and what I was looking for in a college was the University of Northern Iowa. I am currently a sophomore and am majoring in exercise science with a minor in business. To find an internship was not to hard and I didnt have to search very far because Denise and Dana at Smiths Physical Therapy and Running Academy welcomed me with open arms to help me progress towards becoming a physical therapist like them. I knew this would be a perfect fit because when I job shadowed here when I was in high school they were so nice and personable and I was really hoping that they’d let me work with them and have them help me out to reach my observation hours quota.

All in all I am glad with my career choice and truly believe this is the perfect fit for me to really learn what goes on in the day in the life of a physical therapist.

Meet the Author
Denise Smith graduated from Marquette University in 2002 with a Master’s Degree in Physical Therapy and has been a certified running technique specialist since 2014. She is a consultant for multiple local middle and high schools and instructs courses in Kinesiology at McHenry County College. Denise also travels the country as part of the Pose Method education team with a lecture series on injury prevention and treatment along with the running technique certification course.
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