Health and Human Performance

During your first year at PSU, yes, you can still play a sport.  You will have to do some time management in order to fulfill your 80 observation hour requirement.  Once your sophomore year begins, your ability to compete may conflict with your academic obligations.  The Director of Clinical Instruction will closely with you to help you meet your academic and athletic goals.

Yes, you enroll at PSU as an athletic training major.  Your ability to complete the clinical components of the major is dependent on your grade point average (GPA).  In order to begin your first clinical rotation at the beginning of your spring semester during your sophomore year, you must earn a minimum GPA of 2.33 in all your classes as well as 2.33 in the athletic training core classes.

You can retake any class that you earned a C- or lower to improve your GPA.  Once your GPA improves, you can enroll in your first clinical rotation.

Clinical rotations begin during the spring semester of your sophomore year and continue during each of the following four semesters.  By the end of the fall semester of your senior year, your clinical rotations are complete.

The field of athletic training is different than physical therapy. While the athletic training degree will help you learn some things that will help you as a physical therapist, your undergraduate education needs to include the pre-requisites necessary for admission to earn your doctorate in physical therapy. Some of those pre-requisites are included in the athletic training degree; you can use your electives for some of the other pre-requisites. If you are interested in earning both your athletic training and physical therapy credentials, choose to study athletic training as an undergraduate. If you are not interested in becoming a certified athletic trainer, then you should choose our Exercise and Sport Physiology option in the Physical Education major. This program includes more of the required pre-requisites as well as a number of other classes that will prepare you to become a physical therapist.

• Our community of athletic training students is supportive, friendly, and accepting.
• Our teaching faculty consistently receives positive feedback from students.
• Our graduates are passing the athletic training certification exam and finding satisfying jobs.
• We are a small campus that affords students the ability to be a part of intimate learning environments (the enrollment in our athletic training classes is often less than 12 students).
• Our faculty is genuinely concerned with your desire to succeed.