Amanda Woodside ’13

“I chose Allegheny because of its stellar reputation, smaller class sizes, and the wide variety of options that are available to its students.”

— Amanda Woodside

Amanda Woodside, ’13, always knew she wanted to become a Physical Therapist (PT).

“In high school, I enrolled in an allied health internship where we studied and shadowed all of the local health professions. I liked that the PT led patients through exercises, did hands-on physical manipulations, and talked to them about how to become mobile once again and what changes they could make in their daily lives to be sure they were caring for their bodies properly.”

“I intended to learn PT through neuroscience, so Allegheny was on my radar from the beginning. I chose Allegheny because of its stellar reputation, smaller class sizes, and the wide variety of options that are available to its students.”

Not having any previous experience with dance, Dance and Movement Studies (DMS) at Allegheny was never a part of Amanda’s plan.

“I had planned to minor in Spanish. That changed about three weeks into having Eleanor Weisman as freshman advisor for my First-Year Seminar. In her class, we went through breathing exercises, worked with partners doing exercises like exchanging weight, discussed issues in the world and society and how we thought we played a role in them. With PT still in mind at that point, it ‘clicked’ for me that many of the movement exercises that we were doing with peers helped us feel comfortable physically and made us comfortable to discuss anything with our classmates and this connection/comfort would be absolutely necessary to create trust between a therapist and a patient. There was an interesting intersection between Neuroscience and Dance that I hadn’t expected.”

Amanda’s goal is to become a Doctor of Physical Therapy and she feels her DMS background at Allegheny will come in handy in shaping her practice.

“Currently, I am researching the different schools of thought on therapy and seeing if there are any schools that would allow me to become dual certified in PT and some other alternative healing practice. Ideally, I see myself doing PT, helping people through movement by combining ‘traditional’ PT with other alternative therapies but also making the time and space for my patients to have an outlet for their emotional experiences.”