Welcome!

Introduction

Hey there! Thank you for joining us and welcome to the Therapy Trail Guide! The Therapy Trail Guide was created in a shared vision by Andrew Somogyi and Alyssa Brooks during their second year of Doctor of Physical Therapy school. They wanted to create a resource where they could document their experiences, knowledge, facts, and opinions, as well as see how they evolve over their lifetime and be able to look back on and share. They both enjoy planning and being prepared, however many of the accessible information they want to know is scattered across the internet. Therapy Trail Guide was created for a hub of knowledge, in the form of trail guides to success!

Andrew

Hi, nice to meet you! My name is Andrew Somogyi. I was born and raised in Western Pennsylvania. To be exact, the “Christmas Tree Capital of the World.” After high school, I attended a small state university in my hometown county, Indiana University of Pennsylvania. I graduated in 2020 with my B.S. in Natural Science and minors in Sports Management and Psychology. Then in August of 2020, I attended the University of Florida and earned my Doctor of Physical Therapy in May 2023. I passed the National Physical Therapy Examination (NPTE) in July 2023 and finally became a licensed physical therapist in the state of Virginia, where I chose to begin my Travel Physical Therapy career.

Rewind to my undergrad life: I enrolled as an undecided major during the Fall of 2016, having no idea what I wanted to do as a “career”, or even what I wanted to learn about. I simply was the  “you don’t know what you don't know.” I thought I wanted to do “safety science” because my cousins and other people were successful. But nah, I didn’t want to be a follower. I thought about doing “nuclear medicine” but I heard it was “hard” to get a job. I knew I wanted to be in the medical field. But I was against going to school for 8+ years to become a Doctor (haha jokes on me). I thought I did not want to be a Physical Therapist because I did not want to work with “old people” (haha jokes on me). Then, there was a month or so where I wanted to be a Pharmacist and I was about 75% committed to declaring that to be my major. Thankful for that first fall semester, a 1 credit class of “career exploration,” and some events, I had an epiphany! I did not want to sit in a place and listen to elevator music all day as a Pharmacist, but I wanted to be a Physical Therapist. I really do not know how it came to be, besides a gust of cold fall air, that changed my life forever.

I became fully committed to being a physical therapist and declared my new major in the Spring of 2017. I remember sitting in the library and creating a trail guide to graduate in 3 years. I started to look into 3+3 programs, general DPT school requirements, and a few select DPT school requirements. I created a trail guide of classes I needed to take, when I needed to take them, and when they were offered. I was set. As I was getting deeper into my undergrad coursework I became interested in more and more topics. I decided I was going to attend IUP for 4 years, instead of 3. I picked up minors in Psychology and Sports Management because I thought it related to being a future Physical Therapist, and I enjoyed those studies. I enjoyed learning about human behavior, the management principles of money, and everything related to science and the human body.

During the Spring of 2017 when I was researching more about the field of Physical Therapy, I became fascinated with the idea of being a travel physical therapist to begin my career. There seemed to be so many benefits, plus travel of course! I never “traveled” with my family growing up. I had my sights locked on this vision.

Eventually, I applied to many DPT programs all across the country. When deciding what program I wanted to attend, I factored in many things, but cost and community outreach programs were at the top of my list. There were little to none state PT schools in Pennsylvania, but a ton of expensive private PT schools. I was going to attend a program in my home state, but I soon received an acceptance letter to the University of Florida DPT program the week before spring break 2020, when COVID-19 shut down the world. It was a top program, low cost (even as an out of state student), and had many community outreach programs, and most importantly… GO GATORS!

DPT school was amazing, with many friends and knowledge gained. I loved my time there and I created many DPT trail guides for my success. I met some amazing people and one of those people was Alyssa Brooks. I even convinced her to be my girlfriend and begin her career as a travel physical therapist.

Alyssa

Welcome again! My name is Alyssa! I am originally from Jacksonville, FL where I grew up with my amazing family consisting of my parents and younger sister and brother. I participated in middle school, high school, and all-star cheerleading since 5th grade, as well as for two years on the club team at my undergraduate college. I started going to the gym when I began college, slowly and steadily learning more about fitness and becoming consistent with my workouts. Outside of the gym, I enjoyed cooking and catching up on all of the reality TV shows you could think of. I have always been super organized, overly prepared, and pretty serious about my studies, but always making time to hang out with friends or take a good nap. 

So, to give a recap of how I got where I am, I always knew I wanted to stay in Florida for college. After applying to a handful of schools, I was accepted into the University of Florida where I began undergrad in the Summer of 2016 just three short weeks after graduating highschool. The medical field was the only thing that interested me, ever since high school. Upon starting my undergraduate career, I had my sights set on being a Physician Assistant. I soon realized, during the end of my second year of undergrad, that there was no way I would be able to obtain the 2,000 patient contact hours required by the time I graduate. Having to reconsider my path, I ended up changing my major to Applied Physiology and Kinesiology with a focus on Exercise Science. I had friends in this major already, and while meeting more people in the major, physical therapy was talked about quite a lot. I did my research, looked into the field, and soon decided this sounded perfect for me. Exercise and staying active was an important part of my life, so being able to use that to help people improve their quality of life was fascinating. After cramming in some remaining prerequisites, taking the classes required for my major, and completing a 520-hour internship that was inconveniently interrupted by the pandemic, I graduated virtually from UF in May 2020 with my Bachelors degree.

Amidst my fourth year of undergrad, I began applying to DPT programs, again which I knew I wanted to stay in Florida for. I must say, this entire process plus waiting to hear back from schools was one of the most stressful times of my life. I interviewed at two other schools in Florida before finally receiving my acceptance letter from the University of Florida for their DPT program in February 2020. That was a done deal: I would be coming back as a double gator to UF in August 2020! Starting DPT school during the pandemic was…interesting and difficult. Not being able to meet your classmates, learning palpation through Zoom, and constantly being confined to your bedroom. Restrictions began to lighten up soon, but our program continued to enforce minimal interactions outside of lab and lecture time. Overall, my DPT experience was amazing and I would not change anything about it. I learned so much from great professors and met life long friends. 

Somewhere and somehow along my journey, I met Andrew and decided travel physical therapy was how I would begin my career as a Physical Therapist. 

Us (written by Alyssa)

As you can see, Andrew and I ended up at the same DPT school together. We both were very into our studies, loved Saturday and Sunday football, meal prepped every weekend, and enjoyed each other’s company. In the Summer of 2021, our program was picking where we wanted to complete our first clinical rotation for Spring 2022. At that point, we were getting pretty serious and decided (I was the motivating factor) to try and get our clinical in Pennsylvania together. Our program runs on a lottery-type system when picking clinicals, so this was a total gambling moment. However, we were successful and got our first studio in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, three short hours from Andrew’s home town, both working in outpatient clinics about 20 minutes away from each other. After traveling far away from my home (Jacksonville, FL), I started to actually look into travel physical therapy as a serious career option, meanwhile this was always Andrew’s plan. After the start of our Summer 2022 semester, we were fully committed to begin our careers as travel PTs (thanks to Andrew).

Right around graduation from DPT school in May 2023, Andrew and I began our search for travel recruiters while we began studying to take the NPTE in July 2023. We never planned to work on a temporary license, so we could enjoy our fun-packed Summer 2023! In August 2023, we landed our first job as Physical Therapists in Hampton, VA and have had the most amazing first experience. More to come on the recruiter search, job search, and studying in future blogs! We can’t wait to share more of our journey, how exactly we made it to this point, and everything we learn along the way!