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jpiccolo

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Everything posted by jpiccolo

  1. The praxis changes regularly so don't get caught up in studying one topic profusely and not another. My version was different than many of my classmates who took it a month before I did. I reviewed material from all my classmates generally and passed fine. It's big on case study applications in addition to straightforward facts. One version might have more questions on a certain topic while another has one or none on that but a bunch on a different topic. If I had to recommend something I'd say be prepared for both eval and treatment questions, and even review undergrad stuff like hearing/speech science. Some people will study a lot and others will just go take it. Depends on your test taking ability. Definitely take a practice test if nothing else.
  2. Multiple classmates and myself either got married or attended weddings out of state during a semester. It helps once you know your clinic schedule and policies for cancelling clients and making up sessions. We planned ahead and talked to supervisors early so they were prepared. I'd also recommend not saying hey I'll be gone, but make it more a request, is it okay if I miss? Like a time off request at a job. Don't just inform them you're leaving. As long as it's not a habit hopefully it'll be okay. Between an out of state wedding and funeral plus illness I was able to make up what I missed and supervisors were fine.
  3. 1. My clinic had plenty of materials already and charged a small fee with tuition to cover use. I think I bought a couple folders to send home as home program once but that's it. 2. First year most classes for me were in the morning except Fridays and once a week a 2-3 hour class in the evening. Clients were then scheduled anywhere in between normal business hours either 1-2 times a week for 50 min. 3. Clinic can be stressful mainly with planning, and figuring out test results and goals with reports. My externships I got a lot of support from supervisors and they eased me into everything. Take advantage of your cohort and supervisors for support and ideas - you don't have to reinvent the wheel. 4. Time management is really the crux of grad school. We all agreed that grad school isnt hard per se, just time consuming. Best advice is to give yourself a break on part of the weekend (have a cohort movie night on Saturday) and again, don't try to reinvent the wheel. You don't need to spend hours cutting and laminating new materials. Kids aren't always that impressed with fancy things so don't spend excess time if materials are already available. Occasionally I made my own but it's too much to make a habit of. 5. They expect you to participate and generally be on top of material. I knew my grad profs much better since we were fewer than undergrad. 6. I started summer term so we had clients our second month. But most who start school in fall don't get clients til spring term I've heard. 7. We were given the files and if it was a returning client the supervisor usually knew them already which helped. We could review past tests and reports. If it was a new client, we often had little to go on but usually age and maybe referral reason to help plan testing. It also depends on supervisors and how you click with them and their style of supervising. Do your best to ask questions and take initiative. Don't feel bad if you have a crappy session or even get emotional during a supervisor meeting. It's all new and can be tough but not impossible. And eventually you'll be surprised that you're about to start a CF and finally get paid for everything! Hope this helped! Good luck!
  4. I considered the U when I was applying a couple years ago. What I didn't like was the delay in starting clinic (second semester) and waiting until the end to do both externships. I have a friend there now and she seems to post lots of good things about it. My classmates interviewed for externships there and were surprised how the students there didn't know their whole cohort since it was so big. Mine is 25 and we relied on each other heavily. I heard some rumors about quality of the supervisors at the U, but I can't speak from experience. Salt lake is a good area if you aren't Mormon. More diversity since it's a big city in comparison to other parts of Utah where I'm finishing school. I know it was very different for some of my classmates who were unfamiliar to the lingo or lack of drinking/bars (in northern Utah anyway there aren't many bars) but all of us on both sides were open and friendly and respected our differences and it wasn't a big deal. Like already said, Utah is known for being outdoorsy but you can find other things to do as well. Museums, sports teams, malls, hiking, bar hopping (mostly salt lake according to my friends), concerts, etc.
  5. At my university, the only difference is whether you complete a thesis. Everything else was the same. Most of us will have an MA (no thesis).
  6. Ranking in our field isn't a reason to pick the school. It's really not going to be looked at by employers. Plus it's not likely to increase your earnings potential and you'll be left in way more debt if a higher ranked school is more expensive.
  7. Are you referring to your externships? It really depends on contracts your school has and whether they could make a new one, especially at another university. But if you are talking about your CFY job which is after graduation, that has little to do with your university. Just apply for openings or contact places you are interested in to see if they are hiring. My university has sent us a handful of local job openings but beyond that it's between us and the employer.
  8. I don't think any schools I had offers from mentioned a deposit to save a spot. If they had one I guess it wasn't in the offer and maybe would've been mentioned upon actual acceptance.
  9. Nice! I haven't spent any time looking into this stuff yet. Trying to decide where my interests are for settings at least to start for my CF. thanks for the link!
  10. I qualified for federal loans which wasn't nearly enough for my added expenses of rent food books car etc. I had enough saved up for one summer of tuition and had a little help from parents when it got tight. I'm in debt 24k. I was able not to need a part time job but many in my cohort did a GA, TA'd, or had a job off campus. Current plan is just to pay back using salary and trying to budget wisely to pay off asap. It's not that much debt really. If I end up in a school setting maybe I'll look into degree forgiveness but that requires usually ten years of work in a certain school. My school wasn't that expensive but the quality of education was good. I was tempted by more expensive schools but idk that it would've been worth it and have 70k or more debt. Especially since now I'm going to have an unplanned car payment soon too plus rent, I'm relieved not to have excess student loans. Still, if those were my only offers I wouldn't have thought twice.
  11. Mine is 6. They added a summer at the beginning so we could knock out two classes in June and then start clinic in July. Then the next summer and the last spring are purely externship, no classes. A good deal really.
  12. I'm doing mostly inpatient rehab right now but starting to increase with acutes as well. Rehab gets a little repetitive as I see most people twice a day, but planning and activities is easy. We don't usually follow acutes after eval except for diet checks and occasional aphasia tx. Rehab has been mostly cog tx with some aphasia, swallowing, and oral motor/dysarthria. Acutes is split between bedside swallow, speech evals, and some videos. Generally I get more hours on rehab since I see them twice whereas acute evals are 10-15 min. Overall I have plenty of hours, way over 400 since this is my last practicum. It will depend on the number of admits to rehab and orders on acutes. My placement focuses on the CLQT MOCA SLUMS and ALFA tests the most but we have others.
  13. Might help to start building therapy resources. Anything to make planning more efficient because it can be slow when you're new.
  14. For UVA I had to bug Prof Robey I think to find out about an offer of funding. It wasn't in the initial acceptance. Other schools said right away in the acceptance about funding.
  15. I was asked: how would you handle supervisor/constructive feedback or disagreeing with supervisor? (Something along those lines)
  16. That's total what I received from financial aid for the two years. Some of that covered books and living expenses but not everything. Between some savings from my job before grad school and some support from my parents I was able to avoid more loans. But generally I'm okay with the amount I incurred, especially since I was very tempted to accept offers from out of state schools with closer to 30k per year for just tuition. As I start to job hunt I'm relieved to not be carrying around 60-70k in loans. Of course it depends on where you get offers from. Had I not gotten off the waitlist here I would have way more debt. Some girls in my cohort did have jobs. You really have to be good and disciplined with time management. It's tough but doable. I didn't work though I looked for jobs occasionally to try and find something flexible.
  17. I'll be 25k in debt total. Plus interest. And that's in state tuition, which I'm grateful I took advantage of, especially since I'm going to have a car payment sooner than anticipated. 50k seems to be a starting place according to ASHA surveys but I'd be wary of school settings as they sometimes put SLPs on the same pay scale as teachers. Something to check during job apps since a master's degree shouldn't be ignored.
  18. Mid feb to march is most common/the earliest usually. Waitlist offers generally mid April and after til spots are filled. Keep busy with other activities to distract yourself and avoid constantly checking this forum. been there done that, especially my first round of applications and all it does is increase the anxiety.
  19. I got waitlisted after an interview. The thing I probably answered most poorly was why I wanted to go there, which at the time, I wasn't convinced about going and had other offers so I couldn't describe well why I applied. Surprisingly I got accepted from the waitlist and ended up attending that school anyway.
  20. I believe all will be sent and programs that only want 3 will just ignore the extras. I'd guess the order you put them in or they upload.
  21. I view the difference as the thesis being a long drawn out pain on top of classes and clinic while comps is like ripping off a bandaid. Especially since you'll be studying for the praxis anyway so kill two birds with one stone. Really the only reasons to thesis are phd or major interest in a certain topic. Trust me though, no one who has picked comps in my cohort (all but 3) regrets not doing a thesis. Those girls have double the work in addition to clients and homework. But if your plan is to be a clinician, a thesis isn't that beneficial and I doubt will improve your job chances which are already high because of demand.
  22. Unless the school says something about early admission or deadline, I see no benefit other than perhaps your own sanity. Unlike med school, SLP schools don't tend to review right away. They wait til the deadline. That's why no admissions are generally posted before feb and even that's early sometimes. I'd be more worried about making sure letters of rec, transcripts, and gre scores are arriving before the deadline as those aren't in your control. Just meet the specified deadline.
  23. I'd just say that if you are able to get into a quality school that is cheaper, that is totally worthwhile. I got into a handful of schools out of state which was my preference. In the end I chose a quality in state program that limited my loans to about 24k. Now that I'm close to graduating, I'm relieved to have a small amount of debt with a solid education.
  24. I got in on my second try which was the next cycle after getting rejected. So I graduated/got denied in 2014 and was accepted in 2015. I increased my gre scores and was lucky to get a job in technology for speech therapy. The other difference was choosing the right schools to apply to because I had several offers that cycle. I also applied to 10 schools to have a better chance because I really didn't want to try a third year.
  25. I'm externing at a middle school right now and definitely not doing reading or writing. At least not traditionally. I am working on story comprehension though plus verbal practice on main idea, description, etc. I also do artic, fluency, and communication modalities. I don't know how you received a caseload but perhaps someone is misinformed on the work you should be doing. If you have a master's I would be clear with the school on what your field entails.
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