Hello, Renrenspeakers! I hope all is well! WOW, it has been such an eventful, accomplished month thus far. I am proud to announce that I have successfully completed my grad school journey. Allow me to reintroduce myself—Dr. Irene Kwangaba, the founder of Renrenspeaks, is here! I added new credentials to my name as of last Friday (OTD) because I am now a Doctor of Occupational Therapy, whoohoo!

So, how am I feeling about achieving this milestone in my life? The amount of excitement and gratitude that I have right now is unmatched. I was able to proudly cross off Graduate from OT School from my vision board the other day. My lovely family was in town to celebrate with me. They all witnessed me walk across the stage, receive my diploma, and get hooded. I felt an outpouring of support, love, and blessings from everyone who has directly and indirectly been following my grad school journey these past three years. I received screenshots and live updates of my commencement ceremony from my loved ones who could not physically be present with me, making it feel like a whole live event! The text messages, posts, phone calls, and gifts made this day even more special. Knowing that I set out a goal for myself since college, and then actually accomplishing it was so incredible. All glory be to God!

To me, having this degree is a testament to the dreams and values that my parents instilled in me. Yes, pursuing higher education is wonderful and all, but truly this opens doors for me to connect with all kinds of people and become the best therapist that I can be. It allows me to network with a diverse community of people using my newfound leadership skills and therapeutic use of self so that I can improve the lives of my future clients. I felt that my educational experience was even more enriched by the capstone process. I am forever grateful for the unique, authentic connections that I created through my capstone and will continue to nurture through the next stages of my life. I am also so happy to be a Congolese-American, Black OT breaking barriers and stigmas that we cannot achieve higher education successfully. Of course, the demographics will always illustrate that I am a minority in the profession. However, I hope to inspire future Black OTs and show them that we too can do it, and our place in the field is incredibly valuable and necessary.

With all that being said, I also cannot lie, friends—I don’t think it has really sunk in that I graduated to be quite honest. I am giving myself at least a one-week break to just BE and exist, which I truly deserve.

Now you are probably going to ask… what is next for me? In terms of the blog: Now that I am done with school, I hope to create more time to consistently catch up with yall and update you with other things happening in my life. There is a lot more to me than OT, friendly reminder! In terms of my next move in the world of OT: Well, even though I obtained my degree, I am not quite a working occupational therapist just yet. My next feat will be to study for my national board exam AND pass it (because I refuse to take it more than once), and then become licensed. Then I can add OTR/L to my email signature to make the OTD part more prominent and less lonely, lol. So, I still have quite the journey to go before I can start officially working. However, based on how quickly grad school flew by (for the most part), I know that it is only a matter of time before I step into this new era in my life—my career girlie era!

Thank you all so much for your endless love and support throughout this journey with me. Thank you to all my family, friends, mentors, peers, professors, and followers for always believing in me and rooting for me. Renrenspeakers, you all have had the inside scoop on my journey and life reflections this whole time. It is so cool to see how full circle this moment has become.

To wrap up my reflection, I have learned two major aspects about myself during grad school that I would like to share with yall. 1) I can do hard things, and 2) I have a lot to offer to this world (even when I don’t think I do). I hope that for future OT/grad school babes, these two gems ground and resonate with you and that you too can also receive this revelation during varying stages of your lives.

Peace and love,

Irene