Is anyone on the forums looking to do bilingual speech-language pathology (particularly Spanish-English)? I applied to a variety of schools, some with a bilingual emphasis or certificate and some without, and I am having trouble assessing which path would be best. I will most likely end up working in the Chicago area where, I have been assured by current SLPs, I will "definitely" have access to bilingual clients regardless of my training. That being said, I want to make sure I at least get some amount of practice in bilingual speech-language pathology before I begin my professional experiences, and I want to keep my Spanish language skills in tact until then. My main concern is that I do not want to specialize at the cost of other areas I may be interested in (i.e., I don't want to sacrifice learning about other things to focus specifically on bilingualism - that seems limiting!).
Is anyone else going through this? Is a bilingual certificate/emphasis rendered unnecessary if a university could potentially provide a bilingual experience during clinicals (however minimal)? Would the more important thing be to make sure a university has a bilingual clinical supervisor? What are your general feelings towards specialization or extra certificates that complement your degree?
Literally any advice would be appreciated!