mr479

Anyone out there who can suggest an externship opportunity? There was a mixup with mine and I am back to the drawing board. If you know of anywhere taking interns for Spring, please let me know.

In fact, there is an engineering student at one of my schools doing a work study helping kids read, and he's basically doing the exact same thing as me. Only he's not being observed 100% of the time or working for free!

Is there really such a thing as school based clinicians? What makes us SLPs working or interning in the schools a "clinician" and not just a tutor? At my site, where I've been for almost 11 weeks now, I do not feel like I'm doing anything clinical. I feel like a tutor. A tutor who just takes data on every single thing my "student" does. Maybe we're just teachers masquerading as therapists? Or maybe I'm at an unusual site (it is a private practice after all that contracts me out to schools, mostly private ones.) Or maybe I went into the wrong profession? I like kids, but I did not want to be a tutor, and I definitely don't want to help kids with reading and writing ever again. LOL.

300+ applications does not sound like anyone's chances are better!

Nice to see someone in this field who thinks outside the box.

Whoa this program is expensive!

University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee offers a 2nd Bachelors online, and I could not find a GPA requirement. Check it out if you're interested! http://usfsm.edu/programs/communication-sciences-disorders-new/

Fortunately, I do require a lot of myself. But I believe I am entitled to have high external expectations considering the $$$$$ I'm forking over to a rather mediocre graduate program. My program's sole concern is whether we pass the Praxis exam. I say time and time again that learning to pass a standardized test IS NOT the same thing as getting an education, IMHO. I wonder if this focus is pervasive throughout the country. But this is the unfortunate consequence of an unaffordable educational system centered on customer satisfaction.

My 3D graduate program is absolutely terrible, while everything I know about speech and language I learned in my online leveling program. My online program required me to think and write critically about the material on assignments and exams, while my face-to-face program only requires me to show up, pretend I'm listening to monotonous lectures, and pass multiple-choice question exams. When studying for the Praxis exam, I will be able to go back to the recorded lectures from my online leveling courses, and for that I am grateful.

I agree professors are not there for the big bucks. Although, I find it extremely difficult to understand why any young person would want to go into academia in this country. If I were a professor (and I was once on that career path), I would personally feel extremely guilty in the knowledge that my students were acquiring a lifelong debt just to take my class. So I left that path and decided to become an SLP instead. I want to encourage any young person considering academia in this country to reconsider. Or at least study abroad and/or teach in universities abroad that do not commit such crimes against their students. The documentary "Ivory Tower" explains it all. Cheers!

No, it's someone who thinks higher education should be 100% free, and that people, including instructors, who are a part of a system which charges students an arm and a leg to get ahead are in cahoots with the devil.

Everyone working in Higher Ed in the US should be in jail.

Can anyone live on what's left?

The original poster here sent me a PM that they were accepted to one of their schools. Yay!

Honestly, my first thought was, "Good luck on the Praxis!" Ok, but, no, seriously, if test taking is an issue for you, for instance because of timing, maybe you qualify for testing accommodations? Like for anxiety? I have them for that very reason. It helped me immensely on the GRE, and I will definitely need them for the Praxis as well. I say this because I know someone who qualifies and was at first unaware such things existed, but was then too stubborn to get them, and now what? She's flunking out of grad school. I guess it's things like this that frustrate me, because I told her so. I understand the shame and worry associated with having accommodations: What will my professors think of me? What will my classmates think? Will everyone notice that I'm not taking the test with them? I can tell you from experience, your professors will think a lot worse of you if you fail (or, in my case, skip) a test than if you do well with appropriate accommodations. I'm as brutally honest with others as I am with myself. If I'm honest, this doesn't always work well for me, either. I can go to that dark place very easily because of self destructing thoughts. I need to be nicer to myself too. Your response to me above was very powerful I think. You have a strong voice, and I'm sure you will make a great leader in the field of Speech-Language Pathology. And yes I know, test scores are not a reflection of anything. We all have bad days. Or several thousand. I'd be one of the first to sign the petition to ban the GRE from admissions' decisions. I'm excited for the day you give me the middle finger and become an SLP.