I'm a personal trainer and so got my start as that. I'm now back in school for pre-reqs, as I graduated with a degree in English, but by the time I discovered personal training, I was near the end and knew I needed to finish what I started. Plus, I would have had to pay for those classes if I wanted to backtrack, as my parents were shouldering the cost of my Bachelor's. What inspired me to do it was the fact that I needed a second source of income, as the Y is a lousy place to work if you really want to make money. So I got a second job as a rehab aide.
Being a rehab aide inspired me to pursue physical therapy, because I got the desire to do so much more for my clients than I currently could. I realized what I loved about personal training was helping people move better and helping them move free from pain or even helping to reduce any pain they may be experiencing. Goals like weight loss are really boring to me, so the clients I tend to work with are clients with orthopedic issues who want to learn how to not hurt themselves when they're working out. Plus, these same clients often complain that PT just didn't work for them, so I want to be a PT people can think back on and be able to tell others how much I've helped them.
I already know what specialties I want to do, as the PT at my clinic was a McKenzie specialist and a scoliosis specialist, so whenever he used these methods, you best believe I was watching because it was all so ridiculously fascinating. Even though this was a clinic where the PTs were often working with multiple patients, they still did their best to devote 1-on-1 attention to their patients for that hour, even if it was just for 15 minutes or so. But I witnessed so many wonderful things, the way the patients were so happy that their pain decreased or outright disappeared, how grateful they all were. They'd bring us treats and stuff like that. It was really inspiring to work under PTs who were incredibly passionate about what they were doing.
Originally I was going to do a PTA program, until my local community college couldn't get it, but a group instructor told me she's in a flex program in Florida, so that made me decide to just go on ahead and pursue a DPT. After all, I want to do the diagnosing and being able to specialize.
