Current graduate student in the accelerated Health and Exercise Science + Physical Therapy 3+3 program, Zuzanna Misztela ’26, ’28DPT is a first-generation American and a first-generation college student. Born to Polish parents, she began learning English at around seven years old.
“Applying to college was a very interesting process for me because my family did not have previous knowledge of what college admissions look like … It was new territory for us, and we had to figure out everything from scratch,” she recalls.
However, Misztela knew that she wanted to become a physical therapist. After a sports injury as a child, Misztela recalls, “I initially felt hopeless; I couldn’t move the way I wanted to, I couldn’t feel the way I wanted to. But after seeing a physical therapist, I was astonished by how much I improved in such a short amount of time … PT [physical therapy] seemed like magic when I was younger, so the experience put a seed in my mind that I want to be that person to someone else.”
Choosing an Accelerated Pathway for PT Education
“I love the fact that Simmons offers an accelerated program,” Misztela says. “Normally, becoming a Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) takes seven to eight years, but with Simmons’ 3+3 program, I will enter the work force faster … Even though it’s more demanding, I think the Simmons program is really great,” she says.
Misztela, who is from New Jersey, was also looking for schools in Boston.
“I always heard about how Boston was this huge hub of medical practitioners and hospitals, so I just thought it would be a great city in which to study,” she says. She also realized that Simmons could open doors to exciting internship and employment possibilities through a robust network of clinical placements.
Small Classes and Faculty Mentorship
Despite the demanding rigor of graduate studies, Misztela thrives in Simmons’ intimate class settings.
“I really like how small the classes are. I know in different universities there are lecture halls filled with 400 students, but I really like how the cohorts are very small here. You get to interact with every single student, and your professors know you by name,” she says.
Misztela also feels empowered to pose questions during lectures and visit faculty during office hours.
Throughout her time at Simmons, Misztela has found the faculty remarkably supportive.
“Our professors are willing to help us in any way that they can … They give us the support we need to get through this rigorous and demanding program, which means the world,” she says.
This semester, Misztela is taking tutorial-style classes that offer case-based learning.
“In tutorials, we are presented with a case related to what we are learning in our musculoskeletal class [“Frameworks of Physical Therapy: Musculoskeletal I,” DPT 672],” Misztela explains. “We pick out information to expand further upon and research, such as different surgeries or types of repairs, or how different modalities work for the specific population. We then conduct further research using resources such as PubMed or Google Scholar to find peer-reviewed research and share our findings with the class.”
This style of course allows students to hone their research skills while also learning from what their peers have discovered. Misztela has found a supportive cohort among her classmates.
“Sometimes I have difficulty with learning or pronouncing new words, since English is my second language,” she says. “But I get a lot of help from my peers … Even with this language barrier, I still feel that I belong.”
Hands-on Career Preparation
“As of this moment, I would like to work in pediatrics, specializing in prosthetics and amputation,” Misztela says. “I want to help people, especially little children, to get back to what they are doing … I want to support kids who still have dreams of becoming a star athlete or being able to climb and hike and go fishing with their parents and not have to worry that an amputation or a prosthetic might limit them.”
Next academic year, Misztela will take a pediatrics course as well as a course that will include content on prosthetics and amputation. “I am very excited for the second year [of the DPT program] where I can dive into more depth of that practice.”
Through an integrated clinical rotation, Misztela is currently interning at an orthopedic clinic at Spaulding Rehabilitation.
“Even in a small period of time, I have seen consistent improvements in the patients who come to see me on a weekly basis,” she says. “If I can see improvement already, then I can only imagine what it is like to see them consistently for a longer period of time on a day-to-day basis.”
Misztela is also in the process of applying for a full-time clinical position. “Simmons is very well organized in how their clinical placements are presented to us. We have a huge list of affiliations of people the University has worked with in the past, from which we get to choose,” she notes. “Simmons guarantees you a placement … [and] this is something that you won’t find at another school.”
Personal Fulfillment
Speaking on the rewards of the PT profession, Misztela says, “I want to be that part of life changing moment where I can help someone get back to living their life without any pain or without any limitation of function … Seeing somebody happy to be able to move again after not being able to move for a long time would be the most rewarding thing for me.” In short, she relishes giving people the gift of healing.
In her clinical rotation, Misztela is beginning to feel this kind of joy. “Sometimes I see a patient who at first cannot move their legs, is limping, or is in pain … but even after a few weeks of therapy, seeing the smile on their face when they come into the clinic and they say, ‘Wow, I got out of bed and I feel like I could run a marathon!’ The amount of joy that brought me … makes me want to jump into this profession and be able to make people smile.”
From another angle, Misztela hopes to wield her language skills to customize patient care. “Having someone who is bilingual working with a patient who speaks only Polish means that I will not have to work with a translator and worry about whether or not our exchange is translated correctly … I can trust myself to communicate with this patient and be able to provide the best possible care.”