-: I would say for sure you need to get good grades.
And you need to take the GRE.
And shadow, a ton.
And also research the schools you want to go to.
Each one is different
and they all have different requirements
for how much shadowing you need to do,
what courses you need to take.
For most programs, you need about,
I've seen from like 40 hours of shadowing
to 100 hours of shadowing.
So there is a range but I would recommend shadowing
physical therapists in different settings.
So orthopedic, in-patient if you can get it, home health.
They're all a little bit different
and you might be surprised what you see in each setting.
Anatomy and physiology is important because
obviously we need to know what we're moving or fixing
when we're working with patients.
And then
physiology is important too.
Just so we can understand
the higher level, like how the body's working
and other pathologies that could happen.
From my experience,
I think being really compassionate
and willing to really listen to the patient
is really important.
And also just, maybe having a specialty in certain things.
You can take continuing education courses
once we are licensed or even as a student as well.
As well as,
it's becoming more and more popular to have a residency
after graduate school to be just even more confident
in our skills and in our practice.