The coronavirus pandemic has had a devastating effect on my application for the OT PhD program, because when I plantry to complete more shelter hours for the program, I cannotam unable to do so.. Most Occupational therapyTherapy clinics are closed, and even ifwhen they are open, almost all the clinics do not allow students to shadow the Occupational Therapist, due to the safety of the Occupational Therapist as well as the patients’ health. I called many Occupational therapyTherapy places asking if I could shadow an Occupational Therapist through teletherapy; however, the places that provided therapy for their patients through teletherapy would not let me shadow them, because therapists therapists were not fully used to teletherapy and they were uncomfortable to havehaving me observe them.

Moreover, switching all courses online at the end of my spring semester made me very anxious. I was in the process of preparing all the required materials for graduate school, such as my personal statement, asking the Occupational Therapist to write a letter of recommendation for me, and trying to get additional shadowing hours while trying to focus on my online classes as well. Having to carefully understand what is required from me to complete my assignments correctly without a professor's support was a challenge for me.