Spotlight on Laura Acrey
"Life's too short to not go into a helping profession." That was the underlying thought that drove Laura Acrey away from pursuing architecture and interior design studies at the University of Texas at Arlington.
"Life's too short to not go into a helping profession." That was the underlying thought that drove Laura Acrey away from pursuing architecture and interior design studies at the University of Texas at Arlington.
She wouldn't take the journey to becoming an occupational therapist immediately but instead she took a detour of a couple of years into elementary education.
After two years in a third grade classroom, Laura realized that she wanted to feel like she was reaching kids on a more meaningful level than teaching offered her.
"As an occupational therapist, I don't have a set curriculum. Rather, my curriculum is life skills," she explained. "I get to have a class of one instead of 20. That one child gets 100% of my time and attention for a full hour. That allows me to build a meaningful and personal relationship with the patient and their parents that I couldn't quite get in a classroom."
In that same vein, Laura relishes the creativity needed to develop that 'curriculum' for each patient.