Katie Wierzbicki
Manchester OTA students Maura Ramsay, left, and Cheyenne Ellis, were among the 25 students who attended the conference in Philadelphia in April.
From April 2 – April 5, 2025, 25 students and several faculty members from CT State Manchester’s Occupational Therapy Assistant program traveled to Philadelphia for the American Occupational Therapy Association’s annual conference, AOTA Inspire.
Unlike conventions that have lots of built-in tourism time, AOTA Inspire is a true working conference for professionals: the first scheduled events start at 6 a.m. and the last conclude at 9:30 p.m.
CT State Manchester students attended sessions designed to help us enter the field with knowledge we’ll need about pediatrics, physical dysfunction, mental health, social determinants of health, diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, caregiver education, adaptive equipment and technology, developmental disabilities, substance abuse, gender and sexual health, advocacy, self-care, emerging practice areas, and so much more. We also had a chance to gain test prep knowledge for the national certification exam we’ll all need to take after graduation. While we attended the general sessions together, we each chose our own paths for breakout sessions, allowing us to focus on our unique needs as students and as future OT practitioners heading into varying practice areas.
When we weren’t absorbing knowledge and taking notes for each other in sessions, we attended networking meetings with alumni from our own program and with practitioners from throughout Connecticut.
We met prospective employers from across the state, region, and country, in many cases exchanging contact information for follow-up conversations. We got to see first-hand how academic poster sessions work and ask working scholars questions about their research findings. We tried out new technology that one day we’ll be able to use with our patients and clients, or perhaps even have in our new Occupational Therapy lab here at CT State Manchester.
And our faculty got to attend workshops about ways to strengthen our program and their own professional skills in order to serve us even better than they already do.
This trip was made possible due to literally years of fundraising work carried out by multiple cohorts of OTA students, as well as our dedicated faculty members. A grand total of $25,057 was raised through grants, donations, and face-to-face fundraising, including support from the MCC Foundation, the Student Government Association, the MCC Alumni Association, and our own Student Occupational Therapy Association, which held numerous on-campus fundraisers to get us to Philadelphia. Even students who knew they would have graduated by the time the trip happened worked tirelessly to help support this semester’s students in getting there; it was a true team effort.
As OTA students who will be graduating during the upcoming academic year, it’s our hope that future students – as well as students in other programs – will be able to attend similar academic conferences in order to leave CT State Manchester better prepared for the fields they are entering.
Our understanding is that in the past, donors have sometimes been reluctant to fund conference trips for some of our academic programs (including our own), thinking that these trips are more about “vacation time” than learning.
Considering that our delegation reported attending 126 continuing education unit-carrying breakout sessions, speaking with representatives from 25 higher education institutions, and networking with prospective employers or mentors in 74 cities across the country, we feel confident in saying that supporting trips to conferences like AOTA Inspire is a great investment in the education of CT State Manchester students. We gratefully hope that donors will keep AOTA’s theme in mind and be “inspired” to help future students have the invaluable opportunity that we just had in Philadelphia.
Ashley Odell, OTAS ‘25 and Maura Ramsay, OTAS ‘26