St. Kate's Occupational Therapy Assistant Program

[sanantone]

I've never been so excited for other people over a degree program. If you're looking to become an occupational therapy assistant, it just became a lot easier. St. Catherine University is now offering a 16-month OTA program that is 80% online and 20% onsite. The school is in Minnesota, but they're offering labs and fieldwork in Texas, California, and Virginia. Virginia has sites in Richmond and Williamsburg. California has sites in Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento, and San Francisco. Texas has sites in Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. This is an ambitious move for such a small university. It is ranked #22 in occupational therapy.

https://www.stkate.edu/academics/associa...ograms/ota

[Marcus Aurelius]

Very nice program... no question about it. But it's very pricey. I'd like to see more schools do something like this with full OT or PT programs.

[dfrecore]

Yes, $50k is a lot of money for an Associates degree! The pay for an OTA is good ($60k is the median salary), but it would be hard to come up with that kind of cash for most people.

I'm wondering if it would be easier to get an AA or even a BALS from somewhere inexpensively, and then transfer into the OTA program and be able to take a lot fewer courses (hard to see what they require, so hard to say)?

[MNomadic]

Yes, $50k is a lot of money for an Associates degree! The pay for an OTA is good ($60k is the median salary), but it would be hard to come up with that kind of cash for most people.

I'm wondering if it would be easier to get an AA or even a BALS from somewhere inexpensively, and then transfer into the OTA program and be able to take a lot fewer courses (hard to see what they require, so hard to say)?

http://catalog.stkate.edu/undergraduate/...ementstext

Other than the 4 prerequisite courses, which appear that they have to be completed or in progress in order to enter the program, there aren't many other classes that look like they could be found elsewhere.

Pre reqs:

BIOL 2400 General Anatomy and Physiology with Lab 1 4
IPE 1020 Medical Terminology 1
PSYC 1000 General Psychology 4
PSYC 2020 Lifespan Developmental Psychology 1 4

Lib art and science core reqs:

CORE 1000W The Reflective Woman 2 4
ECOL 2000 Human Ecology (or any liberal arts and science course) 2
ENGL 2100 Prose and Poetry (or any literature course) 2
or ENGL 2500 The Short Story
PHIL 2030W Healthcare Ethics 3
SSCS 2040W Power, Inequality and Social Change 4
THEO 2040W The Sacramental Life 3

[sanantone]

Very nice program... no question about it. But it's very pricey. I'd like to see more schools do something like this with full OT or PT programs.

There's one doctoral and four master's OT programs that are at least 75% online. Some of them are only for OTAs.

https://www.aota.org/Education-Careers/Find-School.aspx

Linn-Benton CC has an online OTA program. St. Kate's stands out because of its distributive model. Most distance health programs either only have clinicals set up near their school, or they put the responsibility of finding a preceptor on the student.

[Life Long Learning]

Very nice program... no question about it. But it's very pricey. I'd like to see more schools do something like this with full OT or PT programs.

There's one doctoral and four master's OT programs that are at least 75% online. Some of them are only for OTAs.

https://www.aota.org/Education-Careers/Find-School.aspx

Linn-Benton CC has an online OTA program. St. Kate's stands out because of its distributive model. Most distance health programs either only have clinicals set up near their school, or they put the responsibility of finding a preceptor on the student.

Linn-Benton CC = Pay In-state resident tuition if:

• You lived in Oregon for at least 90 continuous days immediately before the term and can demonstrate your intent to become a permanent resident.
  
  
• $5,289 annual Tuition & Fees in state or $11,790 annual out of state.