what do you like and or would change about your program?

[Liberal Nemesis]

Curious as to what the different programs are like and what everyone liked about theirs and what classes you would add or take from it to make it better?

 

[Masta Pimp]

Awesome question! I am looking forward to seeing some responses on this one.

 

[Love my Mutts!!!]

The biggest issue I have is communication between clinic supervisors and in class instructors. They seem to all have different standards when it comes to charting especially. I am learning to say thanks for your opinion but so & so says to do it this way. Also I wish tests were written by the instructors. Sometimes the wording on them is very different then what we heard in class. I am pretty satisifed with most everything else. We do have great instructors. I really like the wide range of electives to choose from too.

 

[`SoA Nintendo]

our clinic is run by our class instructor...we have one teacher for all of our classes..being a community college and all. his tests are pretty good makes ya think you said electives...what kind of courses do you get to choose from?

 

[Hightower]

I would say more clinic hours. I graduated from a shiatsu/massage 1,035 hour program but only 60 of those hours were hands on clinic hours. (Over 450 technique class hours though).

Clinic was a great way to build confidence and learn how to interact with clients. I think I could have benefited from some more time.

 

[Cov]

I took a lot of energy classes, but wish I would have had more hours for electives. If I had, I would have taken Shiatsu and Thai massage. We learned alot about stretching and ROM, and I enjoy using Reiki and Polarity, but with the job I have currently, I would like to learn more about the Shiatsu and Thai.

 

[dapple]

spacevixen you asked about electives. We have a few. Pregnacy, Reki, shiatsu, jin shin do, clinical sports massage, advance deep tissue, somatic unwiding, spa, hebal remadies, care of hand and foot, reflexology, cadavar, lomi lomi, lymp drain, loki lumi, advanced marketing, and there is a bunch more I can't recall. Something for everyone. We get 54 hrs and I am going with pregnancy, lymphatic, lomi lomi, loki lumi and jin shin do. Thought I would do the cadavar class but have changed my mind. I am exceding my hours and will have to pay for one class extra but thats ok.

 

[Disasturr. <3]

I wish that the instructors would communicate with each other more about what is being taught. I have had the same instructor for 7 months, but now I have a new instructor. His teaching style is VERY different and I feel like I haven't learned anything from him. From what I know, he has more experience in Chinese Medicine, but what he's teaching us now, he doesn't seem to know much about it. It seems as though he is learning with us. And he gives us pointless activities to do, that have nothing to do with massage. Luckily, I only have 14 days left with him!



Smooches

 

[vballchicka204]

Back in the day, 1994 to be exact, the school I attended was a commuter school and then some. Two other students and myself drove nearly 2 hours one way to attend classes 2x/week. That was cool and so was the fact that, because many of the students drove at least an hour one way to attend, the school didn't have clinic hours. Instead, we had to sign up for supervised massage at a contracted site that the school approved.... hospices, aids clinics, battered women's shelters, etc. All of our time had to be documented, our work put onto on-site SOAPs, personal notes that were given to the instructors to verify our experiences, and then there were the feedback forms from the contract sites and our supervisors there that went to the school as well. I LOVED IT!! Real life work, in real life settings, done for free, and taken as genuine massage therapy by those receiving it. It really weeded out those who did and didn't want to be massage therapists in the real world quite quickly. The other really neat thing about school was that our syllabuses were set so that we knew exactly what we were expected to know and when.... when you worked 3 jobs to get through school, and had to pretend you had time to be married, it made life a lot easier to know what was expected in at least one segment of your life.

Communications with the instructors was generally very good. Of course, my class was an absolute hoot anyway --- we started with 54 people, ended up graduating 45 and we all gave each other so much moral support it was unbelievable. One of the gals in the class was married to a practicing psychologist - he decided as a lark to give us the MMM multiphasic personality test to gauge the composition of the group --- : when the results were in it turned out that 63% of the class were nonjudging intuitive extroverts --- no wonder our instructors were ready to tear their hair out some days --- one of them described trying to subjugate our group to the school bureaucracy [at our graduation ] ceremony as "trying to herd cats into a sack in the middle of a field - damned impossible and to frustrating to be successful" --- loved the description then and I still do....

That's what I loved about school

 

[Bone Idle]

I took a 1200 hour course but I would have liked to focus more on specific modalities. Each course was 6 weeks and for some things I would have liked more time and others we could have done less. I would have liked to do more hydrotherapy too. I agree with more clinic time. I felt like by the last two weeks I'd finally gotten the hang of it and it would have been nice to stay so I could be more confident and work on the repeat clients a bit longer.

 

[Sweetie]

two things:

chair massage was a 16 hour elective...i felt that some chair massage should have been included in the regular curriculum.

our exams were mostly rote memory regurgitation. i feel the school exams should be written in a format similar to the question format on the National Board exams. i realize that writing test questions in a practical format is more time consuming, but i feel this is a better assessment of application skills and more in line w/ the format of the nationals.

 

[kori p]

The one thing I love about my course is one of our instructors is awesome...very thorough and really helps to make the process of learning all the things we will need to know to pass the big test. It really helps when he makes it fun and interesting. t023

One thing I would change - well I like the other instructor but there is room for improvement in their style of teaching. This teacher is very unpredictable, changes plans last minute, and can be too nonchalant on some things and too discouraging on others. But, I know we're learning something even if it has to be the hard way - and most times on our own. :? Very frustrating sometimes. t11

I only have a couple more quarters to go and I'm doing very well with all the challenges that has been thrown my way.

Thanks for the great question - and the opportunity to chime in.

 

[norah]

Much much much much much more A&P.

Did I mention more A&P?

RObyn