Friday nights

I spent my friday night (after I got off work) doing two things:

1. I decided to make black bean burgers.  I've really enjoyed eating more beans and less meat lately, so I figured I'd give them a try.  If nothing else, I figure I can make them taste like I want them to, plus have the added benefit of the burgers costing a lot less than a store brand. So I soaked the dry beans all day while I was at work, hoping they'd be almost ready when I got home.  Little did I know that in order for the beans to get soft, you STILL have to cook them for like 1-2 hours, in addition to soaking all day.  This put a dent in my plans, as I didn't get off til 7 and I was hungry then, not 1, 2, 3 hours later.  Anyway, I ended up cooking the beans and made the burgers in the evening.  I guess I'll try them tomorrow or Sunday.  Hopefully they turn out well!
2. I decided to start on my project of MAKING A 3D MODEL OF THE LARYNX for anatomy.  Say what?!  Considering I now know the parts of the larynx though, this project doesn't seem nearly as intimidating as it did at the beginning of the semester.  With that said though, finding the supplies to build it with is kind of tough.  So far I have some PVC pipe, a toilet paper cardboard roll, and yeah....I still have some thinking to do.  I also realized tonight that even with all the random school supplies I bought before graduate school, I am still out of glue and scotch tape.  Major womp. I'm excited to see how awesome I can make this project though. :)

WHAT HAVE MY FRIDAY NIGHTS TURNED INTO?! ....and I'm not even in the bulk of my graduate studies yet, not even close....

Weird part is, I'm not overly upset about my laid back Friday nights pretending to be a chef and a sculptor/artist/scientist/whatever.  It kinda suits me well for now. :) In fact, this project isn't even due for another month and I'm anxious to finish it....who have I become?!

It's been almost a year!

It was last November that I visited the school I'm at now and decided that I was certainly going to apply.  The small town living terrified me, but I liked what the school had to offer-- small class sizes and great, caring professors.  One thing I didn't like about the school, aside from the location, was the teeny, tiny building that our program and clinic were housed in.  I got over this, and little did I know, we are getting a brand spankin' new clinic that will open next year!  My "real" cohort (my true first year as a CSDS graduate student) will be the first class to get to use it in its entirety.  How exciting!  I'm still so happy that I pursued getting my master's in this field so hard.  I never thought I would make it into a program, and here I am, about a year after definitely deciding to apply to programs for Fall 2012!  Time seems to be moving faster these days, and I'm incredibly grateful as I'm that much closer to starting all of my graduate coursework and clinics.  Hooray!!

On another note, the other day my program director recommended that the other 3 year and I sit in on a phonetics class to touch up on our skills.  After I emailed her to remind her that I took the class in person at ODU, she thankfully said that I had a great foundation and didn't realize I had taken the class in person.  Basically she told me that I didn't have to go to the phonetics class if I didn't want to.  Welllllll, even though I don't HAVE to go now, today I decided that graduate school is about learning to do what I want to do in life.  If this is the case, shouldn't I try to perfect my craft the best I can?  With that said, I decided that I might as well go to the phonetics class and master the skills/touch up on what I might have forgotten about (cough diacritics cough).  So here I am, not required to sit in on the class, not enrolled in the class, not getting a grade in the class, but yet....still sitting in on the class, JUST TO LEARN MORE.  Say what?! I guess that's what dedication and motivation will do to a person.  :)  Here's to being the best student I can be for the next 3 years.   

lovin' speech!

I have officially fallen in love with just about everything speech.  I find myself applying concepts I'm learning about to EVERYTHING.  I also find that I am constantly wanting to learn more about it.  I've found pinterest sites with all kinds of therapies.  I also follow the speech path blog on livejournal, which is a pretty awesome support group and I've learned a lot from reading things that members post and the responses.

In tutoring the other day (math I might add), I worked on vocabulary with my client.  I can't say this was my idea on my own, as my program director suggested it the other day during advising.  HOWEVER, I will give myself credit in saying that in the session I had been working on breaking down word problems and trying to get the client to understand what the problem was trying to ask.  After talking to my PD, I decided to print out some math vocab offline-- terrible idea, as the vocabulary had nothing to do with our subject at the time, so I figured that would be pointless.  During the session I  improvised while my client was doing her homework, and decided to make flashcards out of the chapter's vocab.  I felt like this was a great idea-- I mean if you don't know what the section is asking for, how can you get it right?!  Anyway, the client was pretty happy for a change of pace.  She was responsible for writing the definition (as she understood it after we talked about it) and writing an example that would remind her of what it meant.  Hopefully these will help. If so, we will definitely be doing it in the future!

Also, I went to the library today to check out some books.  As a grad student, I can check out as many books as I'd like, for three months. Decided it would be worth it to check out 4 books for now, as fall break is this weekend and I'm not going home. :( All of the books I ended up choosing were SLP related.  I can't get enough about reading about different situations!  I chose the following four:

• Where is the Mango Princess?
• Seeing Voices
• Still Alice
• The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

The first and the last book are about TBIs and learning to live afterwards.  The second book is about deaf culture and history.  The third book is about a professor who studied cognition who developed early onset Alzheimer's.  I've heard that all four of these are great books and I can't wait to get started on them!

So far I've read Schuyler's Monster, which was about parents journey of fighting for their child to get the appropriate AAC device, as she did not speak, but understood.  I also read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night, about a kid who (appeared to have some sort of Autism Spectrum Disorder, but it was never explicitly stated) finds out many 'secrets' in his life and has to learn to deal and adapt to them, all while not knowing emotions well.  I love reading these books because I feel like they give me new insight into the field, since SLPs deal with so.many.different.situations.  

In other news, I pretty much have mapped out my last round of prerequisites next semester.  I'll have a pretty heavy load, but I think its definitely manageable.  I'll be taking Speech Science (at the graduate level), Language/Phonological Disorders, the second part of Research Design (grad level), doing my Observation class (grad level), and Dysphagia (grad level).

So far this semester I've loveddddd neurology which is crazy, because I thought that I would have struggled in it.  We have a 25 page paper on basically speech from a speaker producing a word to the second speaker replying to the word.  At some points the paper itself has been overwhelming, but honestly I've learned so much from it, it's almost ridiculous.

Glad I seem to have picked the right career.  Hope my enthusiasm holds up throughout grad school. ;)

good things are cominggggg :)

This semester started out very very slowly.  I felt like the next three years or so were going to be the longest of my life, living in the middle of nowhere Virginia.  Thankfully, though, my classes have started and while a lot of them are undergrad level, they are challenging just by their nature.  My schedule this semester consists of Neurology, A&P, Audiology, a SPED class for DOE certification later on down the road, and the first part of research.

I'm loving neurology and A&P so much more than I thought that I would!  I've never really been a science person but I just 'get' them.  They are both challenging, but at the same time so fascinating.  It definitely helps that we have pretty great professors here.

I absolutely can't wait to figure out my passion in this field.  There are so many different paths that I could take in speech pathology.  I can work with infants, children, adults, seniors.  I can work in a hospital, home care, a school system, or a clinic.  I can work on the medical aspects of SLP (like swallowing) or I can work on the language side (pragmatics, vocabulary, etc) or I can work on speech (articulation disorders, etc).  Memory functions can also be thrown in (like in Alzheimer's) and everyday functions (like sequencing events).  I'm sure just by naming those things that I have somehow still missed something.

THERE ARE SO MANY OPPORTUNITIES.  I'm really legitimately excited to continue on with my course work and see what intrigues me and what I feel like I will best be utilized for in the field.  I'm sure this will be further emphasized once I start clinics next year.  It can't come fast enough.  :)

I do have to say that I am slightly glad I took the three year route.  It is a little bit more money, and another year of my life away from my home, but I really feel like this year I can master the information that I am learning here.

I love this field so much.  I just can't express that enough.  I'm glad I figured out this is where I want, need to be in life.  I'm even more glad I figured it out in time to push myself to get the grades and everything else I needed to get in to a graduate school.  Especially one that cares so much about its students.  I couldn't be any luckier.

Tips to get through grad school

We had orientation last Thursday.  My program director gave us some tips to stay sane throughout the next few years.  Figured it wouldn't hurt to share them:

1.  Believe in yourself.
2.  Set your mental compass.  Write down 5 reasons you are putting yourself through grad school, so that you can refer back to those reasons when you feel like giving up.
3.  Get on task and stay on task.  Plan a routine/schedule.  Stay on that schedule,  execute your plan, change the plan as needed and give yourself grace when needed.
4.  Maintain rigorous study habits.  Read.  Take notes.  Use the library.
5.  Collaborate with your peers.  Collaboration is an essentail work skill.  Take advantage of group work to hone in on your own skills.  Support one another.
6.  Practice:  Assignments, transcripts, therapy, evaluation, reports, interviews.
7.  Listen.
8.  Communication early and often.  Participate and engage yourself.  Ask questions and avoid using social communication in classes.
9.  Keep the big picture in mind!  Take care of yourself.  If you run, keep running.  If you go to church, keep going.  Don't deprive yourself of the things you love.
10.  Celebrate!  Celebrate getting into grad school and every milestone along the way.

Update! Update!

I'm totally slacking on blogging.  I kept thinking that there wasn't much to blog about, but in reality, so much has happened.

I was officially rejected to ODU about 3 days after my last post.  It didn't hurt my feelings nearly as much as the Radford rejection, surprisingly.  I think secretly I was hoping I would get rejected so that I wouldn't have to make a choice between the two, because making the choice to leave home (when I would have had the option to stay) would have been hard.  Also, I heard ODU only took 5 non-majors, and all of them had stellar GPAs, so yeah.  Not too surprised.

I decided to go ahead and go with option 2 from my last post.  The extra year is kind of a bummer, but I'm hoping to really master all the concepts.   Here's to hoping it'll work out better for me in the end!

In the fall I will be taking Intro to Audiology, A&P for Speech/Hearing, Neurology of Human Comm, and Survey of Exceptional Children.  Classes start in about 5 weeks and I am SO excited.  I've ordered 2 of the books so far and I am waiting for some extra cash to order the other two.  I'm buying all of my books, rather than renting, so that I can start my professional library.

I move in about 4 weeks.  I JUST secured an apartment this past week, and I was lucky enough to find a roommate after somehow missing the roommate connection email or whatever.  Its been interesting trying to gather everything I need to move, but luckily my family has helped out quite a bit.  My apartment is GORGEOUS and the complex has a lot of cool stuff, so I can't wait.  Also, this is my first time living without family, so that is pretty exciting (and terrifying?) as well.

Money has been something that I am struggling with.  I can find a part time job this first (prereq) year, but I keep thinking about the two years after that.  Taking out so much in loans makes me nervous.....Gotta do whatcha gotta do right?'

This is a terrible blog post but I feel like I'm more up to date now...maybe the next ones will be in more detail. :)

Two options

I went to the graduate open house at Longwood yesterday and talked with the program director about my options for next year.  There are basically two:

Option 1:
Take 4 classes this summer through the online prerequisite program (intro to audiology, anatomy of speech/hearing, phonological/articulation disorders + my observation hours).  Start grad school coursework in the fall.  Take speech science as an extra class semester 1 and take neurology of human communication as an extra class semester 1.  This would be cramming my summer, the program director highly discouraged this option.  I may or may not be able to absorb the information as well.

Option 2:
Take anatomy of speech/hearing over the summer online.  Take 3 prerequisites in the fall (intro to audiology, neurology and a special education class I would eventually need to be licensed by VDOE), and the remaining classes in the spring (speech science, phonology and language disorders and do my observation hours).  I could possibly take 1 grad course at this point as well.  I would start my graduate coursework for real in the summer of 2013. Also I could participate in some tutoring program the department does, which appeals to me and the program director thinks it would be a great experience for me.

Option 1 is what I WANT to do, because when it is something I want or am very interested in, I am highly motivated.  I will have less distractions at school (no home friends, no family around, no job, no girl scout troop, etc).  I also would save money with this option.

Option 2 is what I SHOULD do, as I would probably absorb the information better and wouldn't be stressed and have a bad grad school experience, as I've already been told this program can be rough.

The program with option 2 is how much more money it will cost me.  If I go to live at the school, I will need to take out loans to live.  This adds a lot to my loans, however, this is what I was planning to do to start with.  This is what I keep telling myself-- I was planning on doing the three year option anyway, since I did not believe I would get into graduate school this time around anyway. I would have been done with my prerequisites after spring of 2013 and would have been reapplying in the process.  Conveniently, I read today that if I work in certain settings (a school or a 501c organization), I qualify for the public service loan forgiveness.  This makes me feel a little better about my loan situation, as I could handle paying for 10 years the ridiculous amount that I may have to take out, if I have the knowledge and comfort of knowing that some of it would vanish.  I need to find out more about this program.

The program director said I could some in spring, but then I wonder what the availability will be when it comes to housing.  I have a lot to think about, but I think if I am going to do the three year option (option 2), I would still like to move to Longwood in the fall, and just deal with the whole money issue.  I just hope I find enough to do so I don't get homesick, etc-- I don't know if I could even find a job up there while I'm doing my prerequisites, since it is such a small town.

So much to consider.  On the bright side, I turned in my deposit yesterday, I am officially a Longwood Graduate student.  So much for hearing from my last school....

Just waiting

Still haven't heard from my last school.  At this point, I really think that I want to go to Longwood, even if I by change get accepted into my last school. I think the community there within the department will be something that will help me A LOT throughout my time in the program, plus I need to send my decision in by the end of the week anyway.

I visit Longwood on Friday....going to talk to the program director about my prerequisites and how to handle them.  I still need 5 classes and observation hours.  I just realized the other day that they are offering summer classes for prereqs...I wish it was plausible to knock out 5 classes in one summer semester.  I feel like I'm going to be in an awkward spot no matter what we decide to do about my prerequisites.  I can't wait to figure out what the best plan will be!

For now I am focusing on finishing up the classes I am in now.   Oh and reading speech pathology blogs, I feel like I am learning a lot of random little tidbits from them.

I swear I can't wait to start grad school.

second school & random thoughts

I finally gave in and called Radford....after all my decision is due in less than two weeks to the school I've been accepted to.  The woman told me their decisions were sent out March 5.  I guess mine was lost in the mail?  Anyway, when she looked up my name, she said 'Oh....you haven't gotten that yet?' and I kind of laughed and told her no I hadn't received it, but that her answer sounded pretty discouraging.  She wouldn't give me a yes or no, but from her voice I'm pretty sure it is a rejection.  I'll be finding out through the mail soon enough.  It didn't really hurt my feelings, mostly because I hadn't really been considering Radford seriously.

I'm still waiting on one more school.  A 'no' from this one may hurt a little more, though ultimately I think going to Longwood (where I was previously accepted) will be my best decision.  My last school would decrease the amount of loans I will need to take out by quite a bit, but there are so many downsides to staying in this area.  For one, I know that I would probably try to continue to work at least one day a week and from what I've heard, I shouldn't.  Also I would probably try to continue with my girl scouts, which planning for and being with them takes up A LOT of my time, believe it or not.  And last but not least, all of my friends are here which equals mega distractions. I'll certainly miss all my friends & family while I'm away at school, but I think less distractions will be best for me in this program.

Besides, I kind of want the opportunity to move somewhere (though living in the middle of nowhere isn't exactly what I was thinking, at least the cost of living will be cheaper than a big city, which equals less loans!) and to make new friends.  I REALLY liked the sense of community in the program at Longwood when I visited, and how hard the faculty seemed to work at helping their students.  I think this program is the best fit for me, even if I did get into my last school.

I'll be attending another open house on April 13. I'm bringing my mom so that she can get a feel for the program, etc. as well.  Since I took half of my prereqs already, I need to discuss with the program director what my best course of action may be to complete the rest of them.  I don't have enough to start with graduate classes, but I won't be in the regular 3 year track either.  I'm kind of interested in how this will work, as moving to take 5 undergrad level classes within a year (when I could possibly take them online or in one semester) seems kind of silly, mostly when considering expenses.  I need to complete some observation hours as well, but I don't see why I couldn't get that done in the summer as well.  I guess we'll see what she says!

First post!

At ODU, I was a communication major and I loved it from the start-- I never changed majors. In the fall of 2009, I took a linguistics course on a whim.  When we got to the section on phonetics, I absolutely loved it.  I remember when the teacher (who was absolutely amazing) first described what we would need to know,  I was terrified.  Once it was all explained, though, I was completely intrigued by how sounds are produced.  I don't think most people really consider where in the mouth sounds are made and the effort that is put into speaking/learning language.  Once I was done with this class, I couldn't stop thinking about phonetics and what type of job would use phonetics.  After some googling (what did people do before Google?!), I stumbled across speech pathology.  I decided to take one of my school's CSDS classes on phonetics just as an extra class. You would think I would have been bored in a class like that right?  WRONG!  I loved it still!  During this same semester, I took a CSDS course in ASL and loved that just as much.  At this point, I was really thinking about switching major into speech pathology, but I was already halfway through my communication classes and I felt as if it was too late.  I was pretty bummed.  After doing further research, I realized that most graduate programs just require pre-requisite courses before taking the graduate classes, so I wouldn't HAVE to have the undergrad in CSDS to go into the field.  Apparently a lot of people decide to go into speech pathology after they've started another career.

After this realization, I was set on trying to go for a master's in speech pathology.  I busted my butt to get over a 3.0 (the minimum GPA for most speech path programs) by the time I graduated and succeeded. I only had a 3.08 but it was still over the mark it needed to be!  How could I not work so hard for a field that is so perfect for me?  I've already mentioned my love for phonetics, but I also am a language lover.  I took French in high school and German throughout high school and college.  If it wasn't for time/money, I would have learned more languages throughout my education.  Taking ASL was a completely new experience for me, but awesome.  At first I thought it was really unfortunate that I didn't realize what I wanted my career to be while I was early on in my undergrad, but really, I think my undergrad in communication will strengthen my skills as an SLP.  I wasn't a fan of the public relations part of comm, or the mass media aspect, so I mostly took classes on international comm and interpersonal comm.  After doing some more research on SLP, I realized that I wouldn't just be working with people who had articulation disorders, but also with people who can't communicate for a variety of reasons (autism, etc.).  I would also potentially be working with people who do not speak English as a first language, so I feel like my communication knowledge will definitely be a plus to me in this field.

Upon graduating, I had taken two of the prerequisites required for grad school (phonetics & ASL).  I enrolled in 2 more through Longwood's online program as soon as I graduated (Language Development & Morphology and Syntax).  I was determined that I would do whatever it took to get into grad school.  After reading blogs/online forms, I was pretty depressed about my chances of getting into grad school-- I didn't realize how competitive a field it really is.  I almost didn't apply for the fall of 2012, but a good friend of mine pointed out to me that I would constantly wonder what would have happened if I applied this year.  I weighed the pros and cons and decided that aside from the $150 in application fees, what else did I have to lose?

On February 24 (the day after my birthday), my aunt told me I had a letter on the table from a grad school.  I was instantly depressed, as it was a normal sized letter.  I was on the phone with a friend, and decided to open it without telling her, just in case I didn't want to talk about getting denied.  As I opened it, all I saw were the words "within the next year" and I assumed I was denied.  I was pretty bummed, but I had realistic expectations so it didn't shock me too bad.  As I turned the letter over in my hands, I read "congratulations!" and instantly became confused.  I continued to read the letter and realized I had been accepted!  I was beyond excited.  I'm pretty sure I instantly made about 10 phone calls.

I am still waiting to hear from 2 other schools, though I really liked this program when I visited.  Here are some things that I feel like helped me get into this grad school:

• Volunteer work:  I volunteered in a children's hospital for about a year.  This isn't totally relevant to the field, as I was a child life volunteer and just played with children, though it was a medical setting and with the population I am most interested in working with.  Also I am a girl scout troop leader.  This takes up a lot of my time, but I love the results I see in the girls.  Once again, this is a well known organization, shows leadership, dedication and an interest in children.
• Working so hard to bring my GPA up:  Yes, I slacked off the first two years and had one bad semester in the last two and a half; however, I also did quite well most of the last two years and made quite a few A's in there. 
• Taking prerequisite classes:  I'm pretty sure this made me look dedicated to the field.  I wasn't an applicant applying just because I needed to do something as an undergrad.  Rather, I was truly interested and motivated to get started.  As soon as I was done with my last semester as an undergrad, I was enrolled in those 2 prerequisites and biology (which is a necessity for ASHA).  I made sure to mention that I was enrolled in these in my essay.
• Using all resources I could find.  I signed up for Advance newsletter (it's free!) and when it arrived at my house every month, I read up on the various articles.  This expanded my speech vocab, as well as kept me up to date on new technology.  This was also mentioned in my essay.  If I had thought it out earlier, I would have joined the NSSHLA club at my school.
• Decent GRE scores:  These weren't fantastic, but they also weren't awful. My quantitative scores were better than my verbal scores, which worried me.  The program director at the school told me that my quantitative scores would help me though, as there is a large analytical aspect to SLP that people tend to forget about.  So study up!
• Visiting the program: I wish I had visited the other two programs.  One had an open house but was 5 hours away and the other just doesn't have open houses.  We'll see if I get into those two....
• Awesome letters of recommendation:  One of my LORs was by my favorite comm professor, I asked her to write about how she felt like my comm skills could be used in SLP.  Another was by my 'boss.'  I nannied for a family for over a year and I was an occasional babysitter for 3 years before that.  She happens to be a social worker and wrote me a FANTASTIC letter about my relationship with her daughter (I watched her from 2 months on) and their family in general.  MAKE CONNECTIONS IF YOU WANT TO GET INTO AN SLP PROGRAM.
• Shadowing:  I wasn't able to do this for very long, as a lot of places don't let you observe without needing the hours for a class.  I did get two days in with different SLPs and it was a great experience.  It really solidified my desire to go into speech and also gave me real life experiences to write about in my essay.

The important thing to remember here if you are applying to graduate school is that IT CAN BE DONE.  I was so discouraged throughout this process, but yet I managed to get into a school.  I guess I did a pretty decent job of making myself look like a well rounded candidate.

I've known from the start I wasn't a perfect candidate.  Sometimes when I speak, I tend to try speak faster than what my body wants to allow.  I know that there have to have been people who wondered to themselves, "how will this girl do speech if she can't always speak clearly herself?"  Clearly I've never been to speech therapy myself, but it is something that I am well aware of in my speech.  I felt stupid telling people what I wanted to do at first, but eventually I stopped caring because doing speech is my dream job.  Not to mention, with a little work and being conscientious of what I am saying, I can alleviate that problem.  There's also the little issue that I tend to have a strong accent on certain words and say things like "three" and "through" with a rolling R.  All things that can be fixed with work though ;). As one SLP said when I told them this, at least I will know what the people are going through when they are frustrated with trying to fix their own speech.  I am now much more aware of my own speech than ever before.

I plan on using this blog to document the rest of my journey to becoming a speech therapist: acceptances/rejections, choosing a school, moving, starting grad school, experiences in grad school, etc.  I've been googling and I've found information about students in grad school right now, and a lot of it has been really helpful and eye opening while I have been going through this process. I figured I may as well add to the blogosphere for other future SLP hopefuls.  

Here's to hopefully finding out more application results this week! My decision to the school I've been accepted into needs to be turned in by April 14, so I'm starting to feel the time crunch!