Expert: Susie Watts - 10/14/2011

Question
Hi, my name is Alyssa, and I'm aspiring to become a Physical Therapist. I'm currently a student at a community college taking Physical Therapy Assistant (so pre-PTA) classes but I'd rather just be an actual therapist.

I've been doing my research, trying to find out what it takes to be a physical therapist and I understand that I have somewhat of a long and challenging road ahead of me, but I'm stuck at the step on leaving my community college.

Being a physical therapist means that I need to have a masters degree, and I know that I want to go to Temple University in Philadelphia to get my DPT, but I need to have a bachelor's degree somewhere first.

What should I study at a university before I try to go to Temple? Is it possible for me to just get a bachelor's degree in general health and then carry on from there? Temple's criteria wasn't specific on what I should do and as far as I know, Temple is the closest in-state college I can go to get a DPT

Answer
Obviously, physical therapy requires a lot of science so I would take as many science courses as you can. However, it is probably more important to get your core curriculum courses out of the way in community college and then get into the sciences once you transfer.  Why not transfer to Temple to do your last two years of undergraduate work?  Then you can go on and get your graduate degree there also.  After you have finished your first semester of your second year in community college, you can apply to Temple online by going to their website. You will be applying as a transfer student so the deadline for applications will be a little later.  Make the best grades you can right now because they are important when you transfer.