Speech/Language Pathologist--Prereqs and Coursework
August 29, 2015 1:39 AM Subscribe
Hi All,
The previous qs about SLP careers and career change stuff are very helpful. I have some specific qs.
I have been teaching for 13 years although I am an introvert and I find it extremely taxing. I have decided to look into being a SLP b/c I find it fascinating and I love working w/ kids one on one. I would go to SF State. The application process looks rather daunting, but I am sure I can manage! I know it is quite competitive to even get in (though it sounds like, from what their website says, much of that is based on writing skills and GPA--my GPA is 3.59 from an Ivy League Sister School).
I have 0 pre reqs. I will need to take 12 undergrad classes, which they suggest you can do online (I would). I did a Master's in ABA online while teaching full-time and found it mostly easy, occasionally frustrating, interesting at times, and sometimes boring. Does anyone have experience w/ these online courses for SLP? (I know they vary by university and can also be kind of what you make of them).
What about the actual program classes? I know you are not me, do not know me, so you can't answer fully. I would be taking classes full time and likely not working. I am very smart (and humble!) and have a real interest. It just seems like there are a ton of requirements between classes, practica, and various state exams, etc. Manageable?
Sorry this is all over the place; I am writing at 1:30 am after a full day of first graders in 93-degree weather. Thanks!
I have been teaching for 13 years although I am an introvert and I find it extremely taxing. I have decided to look into being a SLP b/c I find it fascinating and I love working w/ kids one on one. I would go to SF State. The application process looks rather daunting, but I am sure I can manage! I know it is quite competitive to even get in (though it sounds like, from what their website says, much of that is based on writing skills and GPA--my GPA is 3.59 from an Ivy League Sister School).
I have 0 pre reqs. I will need to take 12 undergrad classes, which they suggest you can do online (I would). I did a Master's in ABA online while teaching full-time and found it mostly easy, occasionally frustrating, interesting at times, and sometimes boring. Does anyone have experience w/ these online courses for SLP? (I know they vary by university and can also be kind of what you make of them).
What about the actual program classes? I know you are not me, do not know me, so you can't answer fully. I would be taking classes full time and likely not working. I am very smart (and humble!) and have a real interest. It just seems like there are a ton of requirements between classes, practica, and various state exams, etc. Manageable?
Sorry this is all over the place; I am writing at 1:30 am after a full day of first graders in 93-degree weather. Thanks!
Best answer: SLP and grad student preceptor at a university hospital here. Seconding everything that lilnublet said above - especially that grad school acceptance (and readiness on the student's part) are not just GPA, writing skills, academic abilities, etc.
SLP can be a difficult field for introverts, to be honest. Even if you work 1:1 with kids (ie outpatient clinic, private practice, early intervention/home health.. SLP's not 1:1 very often in schools, as I'm sure you know), we like to say that "therapy isn't done in a vacuum". That is, there's always a parent, teacher, PT/OT, SLP colleague, pediatrician, social worker.. etc.. to interact with, regardless of setting. If the taxing part of your current job is talking to large groups of kids all day, SLP may be a little better. If the taxing part is interacting with people all day, SLP is not going to be any easier, IMO.
I highly recommend observing (25 hr minimum was the requirement for my undergrad program, don't know if that's the case elsewhere). Do this before applying for any grad program or spending time and $ on prereqs. If you're definitely set on working with just kids, shadow in every setting you can! Schools, outpatient hospital clinic, private practice, early intervention, inpatient hospital (if able) . You'll be able to see a snippet of a typical day, but this will also give you the opportunity to ask SLPs questions about stress levels, case loads, etc... and the opportunity to build relationships and networks for possible letters of rec (and support!) down the road.
TL;DR - Observe a bunch of SLPs in various settings (if you haven't already) before jumping into the deep end.
If, after observing, you decide to go for it, hooray! The field is highly rewarding, but the job-- and the schooling to get there-- are certainly not easy.
Best of luck!
posted by duckyputz at 9:32 AM on August 29, 2015 [2 favorites]
SLP can be a difficult field for introverts, to be honest. Even if you work 1:1 with kids (ie outpatient clinic, private practice, early intervention/home health.. SLP's not 1:1 very often in schools, as I'm sure you know), we like to say that "therapy isn't done in a vacuum". That is, there's always a parent, teacher, PT/OT, SLP colleague, pediatrician, social worker.. etc.. to interact with, regardless of setting. If the taxing part of your current job is talking to large groups of kids all day, SLP may be a little better. If the taxing part is interacting with people all day, SLP is not going to be any easier, IMO.
I highly recommend observing (25 hr minimum was the requirement for my undergrad program, don't know if that's the case elsewhere). Do this before applying for any grad program or spending time and $ on prereqs. If you're definitely set on working with just kids, shadow in every setting you can! Schools, outpatient hospital clinic, private practice, early intervention, inpatient hospital (if able) . You'll be able to see a snippet of a typical day, but this will also give you the opportunity to ask SLPs questions about stress levels, case loads, etc... and the opportunity to build relationships and networks for possible letters of rec (and support!) down the road.
TL;DR - Observe a bunch of SLPs in various settings (if you haven't already) before jumping into the deep end.
If, after observing, you decide to go for it, hooray! The field is highly rewarding, but the job-- and the schooling to get there-- are certainly not easy.
Best of luck!
posted by duckyputz at 9:32 AM on August 29, 2015 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Hey, just yesterday I attended the orientation for the post-bacc program I'll be starting this Tuesday (yeek!) to prepare to apply for an SLP Masters program, so that's where I'm coming from. First, have you talked to your program about the 'non-core' courses you'll need to meet ASHA requirements? Those are ones that I've been taking online, via a community college, for the past two semesters - things like a physical science course, a biological science course, a college mathematics course, etc (er, I'd taken most of these during my original undergrad program, but that was long enough ago that my program said I'd need to do it again).
Now that I've gotten most of those checked off, I'll be doing the core Communication Science courses in my university's post-bacc program, with face-to-face undergraduate classes. These will be classes like anatomy & physiology of speech, a & p of hearing, transcription phonetics, etc. Based on my orientation yesterday I'm glad I'm going this route, as everything I've learned so far has supported duckyputz's and lilnublet's comments that it's more than just GPA and GRE scores. The program I'm in has two professors and seven grad students in various advisory roles for the post-bacc and undergraduate students, and from what I could tell in the orientation yesterday, much of that was geared towards helping us boost our odds of success in applying to grad school. Over the next two weeks they've set up 3 meetings outside of class to help us work out our courses of study and position us to get ready for grad school applications ... eh, obviously I don't yet know what they're going to TELL us in all those meetings but I'm happy to update you as I go along, if you'd like! Beyond that, there's also a university-level and national student organization that they encouraged us to get involved in (here's a link to the national NSSLHA website), and our university chapter will apparently also be doing their part to help us out with things like resume workshops and the like.
Overall the message was that GPA and GRE scores were important but not sufficient - depending on the programs you apply to, recommendation letters, leadership roles, research, volunteer or observation hours, your application essay, etc. can all also be important. Oh, they also mentioned that (at my university, at least), graduates of the undergrad program applied to an average of 5-6 programs each - I got the sense that it's unwise to put all your eggs in one basket.
Finally, as duckyputz and lilnublet suggest, conducting observations right now would be a great idea - I was a little uneasy about this part at first since it basically meant cold-contacting strangers to ask to come watch them work, and it did take a while to find a place that would let me do it, but it was extremely valuable to get an on-the-ground sense of what life would be like as a professional SLP. I did this by using ASHA's Find a Professional page to make a list of people working in my area (I focused on those working with kids, since that's what I'm interested in - as another wrinkle, you may need certain security clearances to go observe with kids so it may be easier to get in with a different population), then emailing each one with my brief introduction and request - I think I emailed about 8-10 places before I had success, but even those who were unable to help were very friendly. I'd also suggest seeing if you can go in and have a face-to-face chat with one of the professors in your potential program just to learn more about it - thanks to a very generous respondent to my last question, I was able to do this with a local professor and that, too, was immensely helpful in getting a better sense of the field.
This is getting way too brain-dumpy at this point so I'll stop now, but please feel free to ask if you have other questions - I'm really excited to be on my way right now and would be delighted to help you or anybody else out, too, if I can.
posted by DingoMutt at 2:14 PM on August 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
Now that I've gotten most of those checked off, I'll be doing the core Communication Science courses in my university's post-bacc program, with face-to-face undergraduate classes. These will be classes like anatomy & physiology of speech, a & p of hearing, transcription phonetics, etc. Based on my orientation yesterday I'm glad I'm going this route, as everything I've learned so far has supported duckyputz's and lilnublet's comments that it's more than just GPA and GRE scores. The program I'm in has two professors and seven grad students in various advisory roles for the post-bacc and undergraduate students, and from what I could tell in the orientation yesterday, much of that was geared towards helping us boost our odds of success in applying to grad school. Over the next two weeks they've set up 3 meetings outside of class to help us work out our courses of study and position us to get ready for grad school applications ... eh, obviously I don't yet know what they're going to TELL us in all those meetings but I'm happy to update you as I go along, if you'd like! Beyond that, there's also a university-level and national student organization that they encouraged us to get involved in (here's a link to the national NSSLHA website), and our university chapter will apparently also be doing their part to help us out with things like resume workshops and the like.
Overall the message was that GPA and GRE scores were important but not sufficient - depending on the programs you apply to, recommendation letters, leadership roles, research, volunteer or observation hours, your application essay, etc. can all also be important. Oh, they also mentioned that (at my university, at least), graduates of the undergrad program applied to an average of 5-6 programs each - I got the sense that it's unwise to put all your eggs in one basket.
Finally, as duckyputz and lilnublet suggest, conducting observations right now would be a great idea - I was a little uneasy about this part at first since it basically meant cold-contacting strangers to ask to come watch them work, and it did take a while to find a place that would let me do it, but it was extremely valuable to get an on-the-ground sense of what life would be like as a professional SLP. I did this by using ASHA's Find a Professional page to make a list of people working in my area (I focused on those working with kids, since that's what I'm interested in - as another wrinkle, you may need certain security clearances to go observe with kids so it may be easier to get in with a different population), then emailing each one with my brief introduction and request - I think I emailed about 8-10 places before I had success, but even those who were unable to help were very friendly. I'd also suggest seeing if you can go in and have a face-to-face chat with one of the professors in your potential program just to learn more about it - thanks to a very generous respondent to my last question, I was able to do this with a local professor and that, too, was immensely helpful in getting a better sense of the field.
This is getting way too brain-dumpy at this point so I'll stop now, but please feel free to ask if you have other questions - I'm really excited to be on my way right now and would be delighted to help you or anybody else out, too, if I can.
posted by DingoMutt at 2:14 PM on August 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
« Older Greenhouse.io as recruitment software; how does it... | Explain hiring movers to me like I'm a juvenile Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
I would recommend going in and talking to someone in the program, both faculty and students, as well as doing several observations of people actually working in different areas of the field to get an idea of what the coursework will encompass, at least in terms of content, if not rigor. Don't think about those classes as just a prerec to get into grad school - consider them the foundational knowledge that graduate school will build on. Learn that junk likes it's your job - because it's going to be your job.
The program I work for requires 2 years of post-bacc work to apply to graduate school, and it is INCREDIBLY competitive. I teach an undergraduate class in that program and have 50-80 kids per term; maybe 10 of those in each section will make it into a graduate program. I know online programs are convenient and are the new hot thing (I suspect in part to boost enrollment with low overhead [/cynicism]), but what is invaluable are face to face interactions with professors who will write your letters of recommendations and let you work in their research labs, as well as network opportunities to volunteer for different community programs. Those are the kinds of things that put you ahead of the pack of competing students.
posted by lilnublet at 7:55 AM on August 29, 2015 [3 favorites]