tns1991

You don't need to apologize, I fully understand where the bitterness comes from because I am with you there. I do like this profession and feel like I could be a good slp. I have an entire semester of pre-req courses and plenty of research and knowledge about the field that it just seems like a huge waste of the time, money and effort to just say that I have the knowledge and not actually use it in a job. However, I am extremely bitter and freaked out about the horrible experience I had and I cannot afford to repeat that experience (or go to grad school without an assistant ship or similar funding) . I'm also with you about not being impressed with these grad schools either, my undergrad is known as one of the best programs in the country by people in town (it's not, by a long shot) and I have heard of similar issues people had that I experienced myself in grad school. I have looked at similar professions, mainly OT and school psychology. OT is just way too expensive and they never offer any funding other than loans, plus I don't think I would like the job. School psych is also losing funding and with public school's budget cuts being slashed, I don't think it is a good career for the long run. I have an online business which gives me good web skills that I could use to my benefit to be a web designer and a community college nearby offers a certificate I can get in just one year. I also applied to a few college student affairs programs that offer full funding, and a job throughout schooling, but I still go back to speech path. I just put in too much time and effort for me to let it go. When I hear of career changers and people who get accepted after 3 or so application cycles, I feel like I can do it too. BTW, I don't want my negativity or ranting to sway people away from the profession or scare people. There are great programs out there and this is a good profession- but pick your programs wisely.

Here is my situation, and I want honest opinions about this. I joined this forum last year when I was originally applying for grad schools and I found the forum so helpful, so I am hoping you all can help me again. I applied to slp grad schools as a non-traditional student as I did not have a background in slp (I was a Psychology major) and I was limited to the schools I could apply to. While posting on the forums, I learned of several people that were students at various online programs that have post-bacs for people that are not slp undergrads to prepare them for grad school application. I did not know of these online programs while I was applying a year ago, and I would have taken a year to do an online program instead of applying to a limited number of schools that admit students without the pre-reqs if I would have known of the programs beforehand. Anyway, I did get accepted to a program and dropped out after a semester because the program was absolutely horrible. I won't go into great details about it: but the professors and program were unorganized, nobody felt prepared or felt like they were learning anything, and the clinic could not bother to get enough clients to ensure that everyone would have a clinical experience. That is only scratching the surface. They also lied to me about getting my schooling partially paid for, so that in combination with a horrible first semester, I made the decision to drop out of the program. A year later and I am bitter about the whole experience. I have half the pre-reqs that most programs need and can easily finish the rest online. My fears are that I will have another horrible experience and waste even more years of my life to getting into this profession, I will not be accepted to another program and my C and two B's (in classes that most programs don't even require, for what it's worth) will cause me to never get accepted to another school. I am currently set up to enter into a certificate program for web design, but I fear that I am entering into that profession to just settle for something since SLP may be out of the question. But is it worth my time and money to even think about applying to SLP again?