Tuck

Hi all! I am 6 years out from my Master's program (CCC-SLP) and am finally thinking about applying to PhD programs, which is what I originally planned to do years ago when I first started my MS. I found that I enjoyed clinical work + the salary and stability that comes with it, but I remain very interested in a research career. What keeps scaring me off is the massive pay cut I would have to take to pursue a PhD and uncertainty about the academic job market after the PhD. Can anyone tell me what your monthly stipend and expenses are like as a PhD student? If you have your CCC, do you have any time/opportunity to do PRN on the side to make extra income? I am particularly interested in the University of Washington, and I realize Seattle is a high cost of living area. Thank you in advance!

George Washington evidently has an NIH grant on this topic, and I just learned that the University of Arizona has a Transgender Voice and Speech group, so at least someone there is interested.

I have nothing to add except that I sympathize with what a hassle it is to wrangle transfer credits! I have undergraduate credits from five different schools; I'm starting grad school this month, so that will be school #6. If I ever apply to PhD programs in the future, I'll likely end up paying more in transcript fees than in application fees. Ha.

Hey Smartypants, would you report back on what you find out about this? I'd love to know more.

There is a thread about this in the general graduate student area, but I wanted to get some SLP-specific opinions on this question. Like many of you, I've been working for a number of years and am going back to school now. My (former) field is very networking-oriented, so I've always had business cards, and I go through a lot of them - perhaps 250 a year. It is going to feel very odd to not have them anymore, so I'm thinking of ordering some for personal use. What should I put them on them? "MS-SLP Student"? "Graduate Student Clinician", which I see on a lot of LinkedIn profiles? It looks like I can order some university-branded ones from my school, but it would be less expensive to just get some personalized ones online. Alternatively, I could get some that are strictly personal with just my name and personal contact info, without mentioning grad school or school affiliation. Do you guys have any thoughts on this?

I have met non-native speakers of English who are SLPs. It will depend on how clearly you can communicate with clients, including children and their families. Have you taken the TOEFL?

The University of Washington has a medical track. Vanderbilt does not advertise themselves as such, but their clinic director said during my visit that she considers the program to be more medically-oriented. I think looking for a program associated with a med school would be a good bet. Besides Vanderbilt, Rush, MGH, and New York Medical College come to mind, but there are a lot out there!

Ugh, I am jonesing to update my LinkedIn! I start in mid-August. Is now too soon to do it? I don't want to seem totally checked out of my current job, where I have 6 weeks left.

JKathleen, are you from the Rock Hill area? I am from there and did my undergrad at S. Carolina.

I used to live down the street from Tanglewood Apartments - for years, actually. I don't know how many undergrads are in the complex, but it's a nice area to live and not in the thick of undergrad parties and whatnot. You can take the RR bus to campus; it has a stop right there. There are several places I love on that stretch of Aiport Blvd.: House Pizza, Quality Seafood (esp. Taco Tuesdays!), Kome (truly excellent sushi at a decent price point), and Tamale House. Additionally, Barfly's has cheap drinks, Burger Tex has decent burgers, and Mrs. Johnson's has donuts from 8 pm - 11 am (yes, you read that right). Over in Hyde Park proper at 43rd and Duval, Mother's has amazing vegetarian food, the soup at Julio's is soul-soothing in the winter, and Quack's is a great bakery/coffeeshop for studying (Flightpath at 51st and Duval is another coffeeshop option in the area). I really like dinner at Hyde Park Bar and Grill for comfort food. You also have an HEB close by, which is handy. Although that HEB always looks like it's been sacked by the Visigoths.

On the websites question, Realtracs.com was really helpful to us. It's a regional website with MLS listings. We actually went up a couple weeks ago and literally drove around looking for "For Rent" signs, after exhausting online options. (We have dogs, were looking for a house with certain features, had a narrow availability date, etc.) It was tedious and generally unpleasant. However, we ended up calling one place that was already taken, but the landlord had another property that she had literally just found out that morning was becoming available in our time frame! We signed a lease for a house in Hillsboro Village/West End just inside the 440 that I am really happy about! We are moving August 1. Hi everybody! How is everyone planning to travel to campus? Foot, car, bus, bike, something else?

Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is a really enjoyable book with lots of advanced vocab. Great summer reading.

Lots of good advice, TakeruK! I just wanted to build on your advice about credit reports - the third major bureau is Experian. I get a report every four months by staggering these three. I just have reminders on my google calendar. Folks, you can do this through annualcreditreport.com, NOT freecreditreport.com that is advertised all the time! The first is legit and the latter is scammy. Also, I have been trying to build good credit the past few years; here's some additional tips: - Set your checking account up to autopay the balance every month. No chance of mistakenly missing a payment! - Watch your debt-to-limit ratio. Stay under 20% to build good credit. Putting everything on the card for rewards/points is good ONLY IF you can do so without ending up with a high debt-to-limit ratio. While you build up to that high limit, an alternative is a rewards debit card. I have a checking account with Perkstreet that I've been quite pleased with. SunTrust offers a debit card that gives Delta miles that may be of interest to those of you in the US Southeast. - I started off with a $500 secured card from my credit union, and have been calling them every 6 months (again, using a calender reminder) explaining that I am trying to build credit and asking to have the limit raised. It's like negotiating - I ask them to double my limit every time, and so far, and they have either said yes or come back with a lower but still better-than-before offer each time. I do this not because I need the higher limit right now, but because I might one day and because it builds good credit history.

To add to mssmith's comment, for long-distance moves, UHaul gives you set amount of miles you can go without extra charges; Budget and Penske are usually unlimited. We got a 20% off coupon for Budget when we did our USPS change of address online. For those moving (or otherwise driving long distances) with dogs, I highly recommend dog seat belts - for your safety and theirs if there were an accident. This guy reviewed a bunch of models; click the links under Table of Contents: http://www.agilepooch.com/dogstuff/dogbelts/dogbelts.html TL;DR - most of the cheap ones will be worthless in a major accident. We have been using Ruff Rider Roadies for our dogs for log car trips for a couple of years now, and I'm very pleased. Also, I posted this in another thread, but depending on what kind of stuff you own and how you are moving, I'm not entirely convinced that replacing stuff is more cost-effective than moving it.

When I did my USPS change of address online, one of the coupon offers was for 20% off Budget truck rentals! You can go ahead and do it but set the address change for a future date. We are using a 22' rental truck and a car hauler trailer plus driving our other car. It will be around $1500 total for truck, trailer, hotel, and gas. Plus I may splurge and spend an extra $130-ish for unloading help at our destination. Ultimately, unless we buy thrift store furniture, we estimated moving most things to be cheaper than replacing if we moved ourselves. This is not neccesarily so with movers. I'm happy with second-hand lamps and end tables and stuff, but not, for example, beds.