alexagrace

It really depends if you have groups or not! As I mentioned in my response to crepetown, clinic is usually 3-5 hours in your first semester and 5-7 hours in your second semester. So, this could mean that in your first semester, you only have 3-5 clients (one client per hour) or if you have a group then you could have around 10 clients in a semester...this leads to a LOT more report writing, hahaha! Oh, and something that I didn't have in my first semester: Some students need to take graduate-level Speech Sounds Disorders. I took it in undergrad at the UA, so I didn't have to take it as a graduate student, but that would be an extra class on TTh at 8:00.

Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry for not seeing this sooner! Sure! Clinic schedule varies from person-to-person and it can occur any time that you don't have class, but you'll have all of the same classes with the same people. I've attached pictures of the class schedules for both semesters. (NOTE: this is my schedule WITHOUT clinic, so clinic is an extra 3-5 hours in your first semester, and about 5-7 in your second semester) I don't imagine that either of them will change, except for (probably) the Monday 5:30pm class because it'll be replaced with a different class at an unknown time. As for the Master's thesis, nope! My lab is sort of disappearing after this year because my professor is moving to a different university, so I won't be continuing (I'm getting a TA-ship instead). From what I know, it seems that most students who do a thesis do NOT have an RA-ship associated with it, but I think that most professors would only offer RA-ships to students who are thinking of doing a thesis. RA-ships are really few and far between, honestly. Hope that helps! I'm glad to answer any other questions!

@waitwhichgaby Haha, tell me about it! Sometimes it can be a bit of a bummer to not have many similar interests among the other people in my cohort, but it's something that I've just had to get used to... /sigh It can be especially hard, because I always have spent a lot of time in online communities and I often hear people giving online friendships and time spent online a bad rap. </3 At the University of Arizona, I'd say that the bilingual program is still very much in development. It was run by a separate professor in the years prior to us, and they just hired someone new this year. Right now, I'm on the bilingual evaluation team and it's been a great (and challenging!) experience. So far, all but one of the evaluated clients have been children. That said, I know that we do have both adult and child bilingual clients! To get the certificate, you must accumulate at least 75 contact hours with culturally and linguistically diverse populations. However, it's not yet been made clear whether those hours must be delivered, in part or in whole, in a language other than English. That's one of the big kinks that I think will be worked out over the next year, and should be smoothed out by the time you would apply. In addition to the 75 hours, it involves taking the department's class on Bilingualism, a phonetics/phonology course in another language at the graduate level, and an elective course outside of the department related to bilingualism and/or multiculturalism. Dr. Fabiano-Smith, who teaches the bilingualism class, is amazing! I should note that the clinic will try to prioritize giving bilingual clients to those enrolled in the bilingual program. However, there is no specific placement other than bilingual evaluation that is all bilingual clients. (I hope what I said makes sense...haha!) Going to your neurolinguistics question...I'm not quite sure! My instructor in my lab is actually leaving this May, so it won't be there anymore, unfortunately. </3 Dr. Fabiano is the only professor at the UA that studies bilingual populations, but her focus is on phonological disorders and I think, researching and advocating for policy change? Which is very much needed in Arizona, let me tell you, haha. As for the apps, I think that technology and online communities are a really great means for expanding communication and I feel very strongly about it. I definitely advocate for using it as a means to help clients, but I've kind of found that a lot of professors and classmates have negative preconceptions about social communication and the internet. I admit that I may be biased due to my experience growing up and even now, where social anxiety makes it hard for me to express myself face-to-face and and I've found great comfort in both the extra time and anonymity that the internet has provided for me. If you have any academic papers that you could send my way about this topic, I'd love to read them! Anyway, enough rambling... I hope I addressed at least some of your questions?

1) It's all TA-ships and very few RA-ships. They do offer them to MS students! I have been under the impression that they offer them based on merit. I don't know exactly how many of my classmates have TA-ships, but I'd guess at least 6 out of 27? And then the 2nd year students also have other TA positions. As for having an outside job, I don't want to say that you can't, but many of us spent 9-5s (or the equivalent) in our first semester. It's a really demanding program and I have been in the building for over 12 hour days before! I think I was kind of an outlier though... If you have excellent time-management skills, then I say go for it, but I couldn't imagine working that extra time over the week, especially with a TA-ship! 2) Your first semester placement is usually up in the air and not up to you. In your application, there was a space to say what you were interested in. However, very few actually get a clinic placement that is what they want. The program generally does want you to get a diverse clinic experience, and you must get both adult and child clinic hours one way or another, but the balance can be pretty uneven. If you really want a certain clinical instructor, however, you must must must advocate for yourself strongly. Tell them what you are interested in IN-PERSON and that you would like to be placed there for your second semester. This is especially true if you want to work with adults; adult placements are really scarce! In your second year of the MS program, you'll likely be in a placement off-campus. You also will need to advocate for yourself there if you want a school or hospital. 3) Faculty advisors play as big as a role as both you, and they, want to play. Some advisors would be happy not to meet with you except when necessary. If you decide to do a thesis, the professor whose research you will be doing will become your faculty advisors. So, if you have one faculty advisor your first year and then you get to know a different professor who you want to do a thesis with, then you can switch! 4) There are some students who do part-time. Heck, there have been 2 ladies who have been/are pregnant in our program right now. So, I definitely don't want to say that it's impossible. I don't know how many hours the part-timers have been able to put in, but I think that 10 is definitely reasonable, maybe more if they can get weekend shifts. But, I don't really know...I'll try to ask around.

Yep, pretty similar to what racoomelon already said! If you wanna be walking distance to campus, I think that most people (individually) pay between $415-480 for an apartment with 1-3 roommates. The farther away from campus, the cheaper it'll tend to be. I lived about a 10 minute drive away from campus for undergraduate and it was $415 for a 2 bedroom apartment. Now, I'm about a 15 minute drive from campus and I live alone for $485 a month. As for your question about reductions in state funding and how it has affected the UA and this program: Hmmm, I'm not entirely sure how it's affected the UA, but I know that the program was considering adding an additional program fee (I wish I remembered how much, but it was possibly and extra $500). That might have been specific to the bilingual program, but again, this was just SPECULATION at the time that it was said. I'm not sure that the students have currently felt that the reduction in state funding has hurt the program, but I can ask around. Sorry I couldn't give you a better answer!

Hi there! I currently go to the University of Arizona and I'm in the bilingual program. I'm also working in a neurolinguistics lab here at the University of Arizona and I had a minor in French, so it sounds like we have at least a little bit in common! (Also is your icon from xxxHolic?) Do you have any specific questions about the program? This year, it's sort of being revamped so I might not have all the answers for you, but I can do my best! I'm really interested in what you mentioned about technology integration in therapy though (I'm assuming that you don't mean AAC either, right?), I wish that I had the coding knowledge to do something like that. I think a lot of the professors here would be interested in that. I would often suggest various iPad applications to use for therapeutic purposes, such as creating narratives with drag-and-drop pictures and whatnot, but nothing like making an app myself!

Hello GradCafe! I'm currently in my first year of the SLP program at the University of Arizona. I hear that the program recently sent out their admissions letters, so I wanted to make this thread to meet anyone who is thinking about/has accepted their offer to the UA. I'd also be happy to answer anyone's questions about the program, Tucson, or just grad school life in general! Hope to see some of you in the Dirty T this coming August (or sooner, if you plan on visiting)! Best, Alexa

Hi! I will be working as an RA this coming Fall with the same professor in my undergrad. Based on my interactions with him, I would definitely ask a professor that you are interested in working with as soon as possible. Sometimes they have openings soon, other times it may be up to a year before they are willing to take another student. The two labs that I've been in during undergrad gave me two wildly different experiences, but both of them required a formal application with a resume, transcripts, etc. However, if the labs you're looking at don't explicitly state that they want these materials, do not send them a resume/transcript in your first email because it could come off as presumptuous. Just tell them why you're interested and ask if they would like to see any credentials! For my first year, I was signed up for 2 credits (6 hours a week) in one lab and 3 units (9 hours per week) in another. The time commitment varied, sometimes I would work a little bit less than 6 or 9 hours, and other times I would work more. It mostly depended on the participant load and how many projects you're on. Currently, I'm signed up for an Honors thesis in a lab for 3 units and I work 15 hours in the lab OUTSIDE of thesis work--so it's a heck of a lot to juggle! I was expected to be able to run and troubleshoot experiments on my own all the way from participant recruitment, follow-ups, data collection, and analysis. Don't worry if you don't have experience in these things--they will teach you! I would be taught how to do a task maybe once or twice, but then I was expected to be able to go from there. My current lab has me on two projects outside of my thesis: I recruit stroke patients within 72 hours of onset and run a longitudinal fMRI study with controls. My previous lab had me run a listening and production study then extract the results. Mostly a lot of waveform clipping and then copy and pasting numbers onto a spreadsheet. Both have been awesome experiences though! The one thing that I did not have to do was interpret the implications of the results myself since I obviously am less familiar with the literature than my professor. Phew! Most labs do not require you to have coding skills until you are in graduate school, and even then maybe only at the PhD level. What you do need to have is a genuine interest in the research you are doing and a desire to learn! My least favorite thing has been working with people who say that they only joined a research lab to put on their resume or to get on a professor's good side. I've met fabulous and bright people who are academically successful, but just did not care about their work and it really showed. Conversely, there have been people who are not great at school but they worked hard in lab and have been some of the best research assistants! I joined research mostly just because I'm floored about how much we still don't know in this world and I wanted to help us learn more! I did select only the labs that were researching things I was interested in, though. I'd definitely suggest going into a research lab if you're interested. My advice would be: Never be afraid to ask questions when in your lab--if people didn't ask questions, we wouldn't have research in the first place! Best of luck!

I accidentally made this group only available to those with a UA email address...I couldn't fix it, so I had to make a new group: Link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/972921346061175/

Facebook group is up! https://www.facebook.com/groups/972921346061175/

Hello everyone! My name's Alexa and I'm a current undergraduate at the University of Arizona. I was recently admitted and have accepted an invitation here. I see that Natasha, one of our zero-years, is here on this forum as well! I got a bit giddy when I found this thread so I haven't thoroughly read everyone's comments yet, but I'll try to answer any questions or address concerns that people expressed! Feel free to ask me questions about Tucson or the U of A! -- Alexa edits: About research at the University of Arizona: The UA is definitely a research focused university, but from speaking with many of the first and second years, you are by no means forced to complete one. Unless you are looking to complete a PhD, then you are heavily encouraged to complete one, which essentially means you should. However, I have been very involved in the research here as a participant and as a researcher (I work in the Language Neuroscience Lab with Dr. Wilson and I previously worked in the Voice Research Lab with Dr. Samlan). It has definitely been an exciting experience working hands-on with hospital patients and doing fMRI scans. I always have my hands full and it can be tough to balance all of the responsibilities, but I plan on continuing in Dr. Wilson's lab funded as a graduate research assistant. Also! I plan on making a facebook page for our cohort--if you do accept your admission, please reply to this post so I can add you!