I always loved science and English in school. People thought it was weird because those two subjects apparently don't mix well. So when it came to picking a major as I applied for undergrad programs, I decided to start out with Biology, and if I didn't like it, it'd be easier to switch to English than the other way around later on.
My first semester at Grove City College in the Fall of 2009 revealed that I just wasn't cut out for Bio. Too much about cells and stuff that I just didn't care about. Anatomy was my true passion when it came to science. I loved learning about how my body was put together to make my everyday functioning possible. Anyway, Spring of 2009 I was happily a new English major. And I stayed that way through to my graduation in 2013.
By the time I started trying to figure out how I'd use my major in a job, I was wondering what exactly I could do that would satisfy my interests. And I wasn't coming up with much. I would have probably liked to go into publishing, but that business is changing so much these days. I just didn't feel it would be a safe career choice for me.
Advanced Grammar during my senior year showed me an area of my major that I hadn't thought about before: language, development, and phonetics. I was quickly convinced that this might be an area that would capture my interests but needed to figure out what that looked like in the employment field. And so I discovered Speech-Language Pathology.
I started researching how to become a Speech-Language Pathologist and I found out what requirements I'd have to satisfy:
1. a Master's degree in Speech-Language Pathology
2. pass the Praxis exam
3. completion of a Clinical Fellowship Year following graduation
4. CCC's (Certificate of Clinical Competence)
To find out more, you should visit the ASHA certification webpage, and also check out the State-by-State requirements for your state.
At this point, I figured that my next step was getting my Masters degree. In order to get a Masters in Speech Path, there are a list of requirements, most of which I did not yet have:
1. undergraduate pre-requisite courses such as:
a. Intro to Communication Disorders
b. Phonetics
c. Anatomy & Physiology of Speech and Hearing
d. Intro to Audiology
e. Neurological Bases of Speech and Hearing
f. Language Disorders
g. Articulation Disorders
2. 20 hours of clinical observation hours (with signature of a certified SLP)
3. GRE test scores
4. GPA of at least 3.0 (and many average GPAs of applicants are much higher)
Now, each grad program you apply to will likely require different pre-requisite courses, but most of the ones that I applied to required the ones I listed above. Additionally, the clinical observation hours should be a mix of adult and pediatric, with as great a variety of disorders as you can manage. This might be difficult if you are doing your classes online (like I did), but all I can tell you is to call around at hospitals and schools to try to find people who will let you come and observe.
So with the knowledge above, which I found over the course of hours of reading up online, I decided to enroll in an online Pre-SLP program to get my pre-requisites. Not what I hoped to be doing when I graduated in 2013, when I had originally hoped to be done with school forever! But I don't regret my decisions, and at that point in my life, I was beginning a journey that would direct me towards an amazing career field.
Up Next: What Schools Offer Pre-SLP Courses?
Saturday, May 9, 2015
Thursday, April 16, 2015
How I got here
Senior year of college, I found myself in an Advanced Grammar class. Despite the horror some might feel at the idea, I had actually chosen this class. It was between Literary Criticism and Advanced Grammar, and I chose grammar.
I graduated from Grove City College, a small Christian school near Pittsburgh, PA in 2013. My undergrad was in English (no, not English Ed.), and I had little to no idea what I'd be doing with my life come May. Until Advanced Grammar. Where I discovered language development, Noam Chomsky, and phonetics. I quickly became fascinated and wanted to learn more about these things, but the videos we watched in class all had to do with research...and I did NOT want to do research. I wanted hands on. Working with kids. And learning lots of things I didn't know already about language.
I should also mention that my biggest decision in college up until this point was choosing between science (anatomy especially) and English (mostly for the language, and also literature). I have always loved both, despite how "weird" it was for me to be interested in them both. People who like science like math. And people who like Enlgish are more artsy. You can't like both.
That's what I had been hearing for most of my adolescent life, and I believed that everyone was right. Science and language don't really mix. They don't go together at all. Well, luckily Speech Pathology proved me--and everyone else--wrong.
As soon as I discovered that there was a career path that wouldn't make me choose between science and language, I knew I found the right place for me. So in the spring of my senior year (2013), I started a new journey. I learned that schools offered post-bacc programs to get students like me the undergraduate credits to get into grad school. And I also learned that the field was crazy competitive, due to limited seating in graduate programs. I had managed to come out of undergrad with no student loans, but this new path would definitely cost me. So I had my second huge decision to make: would I take the risk in a new field?
It was a hard choice. Lots of people thought I was crazy. I just got my Bachelor's degree, why would I want to do this to myself? Well, seeking council from people in the field already, I talked to three SLPs that spring. The first two were fully supportive of my crazy plan to enroll in a post-bacc program and get the pre-reqs I'd need for grad school. The last, a guy who was supposed to be an employment counselor, was just terrible. I can't remember how I found his information, but I emailed him, seeking some type of positive guidance or encouragement. Instead, I got a haughty and rude response, where he basically told me I was making a huge mistake and that I'd never get into a graduate program.
I'm sharing my back story here because I want to speak out to people looking for encouragement who come from a background like mine. An English major, from a small school, with an average undergrad GPA, who had to take pre-reqs from another school in order to get into graduate school.
You can do this. Despite what Negative Nancys might tell you, if you work hard and want to break into the field because you know it's what you're meant to do, you can definitely get into graduate school. I'm starting this blog in the hopes that my experiences will be an encouragement to students--whether you have the undergrad in Speech Path, or not--those looking for just a little reassurance that they are not crazy for trying to pursue such a competitive career. I'll be sharing sporadically, so stay tuned.
I graduated from Grove City College, a small Christian school near Pittsburgh, PA in 2013. My undergrad was in English (no, not English Ed.), and I had little to no idea what I'd be doing with my life come May. Until Advanced Grammar. Where I discovered language development, Noam Chomsky, and phonetics. I quickly became fascinated and wanted to learn more about these things, but the videos we watched in class all had to do with research...and I did NOT want to do research. I wanted hands on. Working with kids. And learning lots of things I didn't know already about language.
I should also mention that my biggest decision in college up until this point was choosing between science (anatomy especially) and English (mostly for the language, and also literature). I have always loved both, despite how "weird" it was for me to be interested in them both. People who like science like math. And people who like Enlgish are more artsy. You can't like both.
That's what I had been hearing for most of my adolescent life, and I believed that everyone was right. Science and language don't really mix. They don't go together at all. Well, luckily Speech Pathology proved me--and everyone else--wrong.
As soon as I discovered that there was a career path that wouldn't make me choose between science and language, I knew I found the right place for me. So in the spring of my senior year (2013), I started a new journey. I learned that schools offered post-bacc programs to get students like me the undergraduate credits to get into grad school. And I also learned that the field was crazy competitive, due to limited seating in graduate programs. I had managed to come out of undergrad with no student loans, but this new path would definitely cost me. So I had my second huge decision to make: would I take the risk in a new field?
It was a hard choice. Lots of people thought I was crazy. I just got my Bachelor's degree, why would I want to do this to myself? Well, seeking council from people in the field already, I talked to three SLPs that spring. The first two were fully supportive of my crazy plan to enroll in a post-bacc program and get the pre-reqs I'd need for grad school. The last, a guy who was supposed to be an employment counselor, was just terrible. I can't remember how I found his information, but I emailed him, seeking some type of positive guidance or encouragement. Instead, I got a haughty and rude response, where he basically told me I was making a huge mistake and that I'd never get into a graduate program.
I'm sharing my back story here because I want to speak out to people looking for encouragement who come from a background like mine. An English major, from a small school, with an average undergrad GPA, who had to take pre-reqs from another school in order to get into graduate school.
You can do this. Despite what Negative Nancys might tell you, if you work hard and want to break into the field because you know it's what you're meant to do, you can definitely get into graduate school. I'm starting this blog in the hopes that my experiences will be an encouragement to students--whether you have the undergrad in Speech Path, or not--those looking for just a little reassurance that they are not crazy for trying to pursue such a competitive career. I'll be sharing sporadically, so stay tuned.
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