Hello everyone! I recently graduated with a bachelors in Music Therapy and am now considering OT. Sadly, during my 6 month internship I got extremely burned out and grew a little bit of hate towards my experience in being a full time music therapist. I did my internship at a private practice and provided therapy to a wide range of population including new borns at pediatric daycares, assisted living facilities with dementia units, neurodivergent young adults, schools, private one-on-one sessions, and more. The one thing I liked about music therapy when going into the field was the wide range of populations I could work with because I am the type of person that gets bored of doing the same thing every single day. Now during internship what actually burned me out was the music aspect of the therapeutic process in music therapy. I had to learn how to play, sing, and use multiple songs therapeutically in less than a week, weekly for 6 months. And I had to do that for over 30 patients weekly. It took the fun and passion I found in music away from me… there were some sessions where some patients didn’t want or need music, sometimes we would talk, or i would just listen and be there for them. Sometimes for my young adults I would help them make to-do-lists when they wanted to achieve something and would try to provide advice with different ways they could remember to clean their rooms, do their chores, etc. And I really enjoyed that.

Now I’m graduated and have 0 desire to work full time as a music therapist. I really enjoyed the therapeutic relationships and seeing patients progress throughout sessions, but I don’t want to do that with music anymore. Not to mention during internship I saw how MT’s are considered performers rather than therapists, are not respected, underpaid, and overworked.

I found this page while trying to see what OT’s thought about their career and i see some good posts but mostly is people ranting and expressing negative feelings. I don’t want to spend 2 1/2 years studying to then be burned out again and not want to work as an OT. Does anyone have some guidance or anything to help me with my decision? I am going to shadow an OT in the next week or two. I really just want to help people and make a positive impact on their lives (OT seem like a very good way of doing this) and make good money.

If I pursue OT I am interested in working at schools (I’ve seen how people mentioned here that you don’t take work home and that’s important for me), and once I gain experience I would also like to try out Traveling OT. If you have any insights for those options I’d love to hear you out!

Any thoughts are highly appreciated! Thanks for reading my post. Have a great Sunday everyone :)