bibliophile222

I wasn't aware you needed liability insurance in grad school! My program didn't mention it to us and I only heard about it in passing during class. Does your program make you get it? From what I've heard, it's pretty cheap. I don't remember the name of the company, but there's one recommended by ASHA that I want to say is something like 60 bucks a year?

Oh yeah, one more thing that just came to me: make sure you date your data sheets and keep them organized! You may need them to write progress reports, and if they're not dated and organized by client it becomes so much more confusing. Also, each week when you do your SOAP notes, add the data to a cumulative graph or table. It makes the progress report soooo much easier!

I absolutely agree with this. I save all the miscellaneous handouts and pdfs in dropbox, organized by area (fluency, aphasia, developmental norms, etc). You never know when it can come in handy!

I really hate cleaning my house (actually a small one bedroom apartment). I know most people don't like cleaning, but they still just seem to do it regularly and keep their places nice. I have no willpower and have to wait until it gets awful. I literally had to watch two episodes of Hoarders to get the motivation to clean my bedroom, and I still stopped partway through to pretend to be productive by ordering a bookcase (much needed, but still...) I've made great improvements with my chronic procrastination over the years, but cleaning is the final frontier. If I ever strike it rich, the first thing I'm doing is hiring a maid.

I know, I'm kind of worried. She hasn't been on for days, which is unusual! Hopefully she's just decided to take a break from Grad Cafe, but I am a little worried about her mental state right now and I hope she's okay.

I actually was suggesting it as an option for staying in academia and doing research, since the job market for Ph.Ds in academia in our field is so much better than almost any other field. One of my professors never ended up doing clinical work because she didn't like it, so she went back for the Ph.D instead. I admit that there's not much in the way of coding, except maybe if you program AAC devices. However, I do feel that there is definite overlap with psycholinguistics, depending on what area you specialize in. Obviously I don't want to push it if you're not interested, just stressing that there's more to it than the clinical element!

Figure out how you work best and where. There's a lot of work, but it's manageable with good study habits. It takes me forever to get started on work, which means I usually do school work every day. It doesn't gave to he like that, though! If you're diligent, stay focused while working, and have a good study space, you can usually get at least one full weekend day without school stuff. When I really need to focus, I go to a quiet study room on the top floor of our building and just crank it out. It works great, but I don't do it often enough. Also, if you're not great at working in groups (like me) you have to adapt because there are a lot of group assignments! Again, figure out how you work best within a group. Personally, I get a bit overwhelmed and scatterbrained when everyone's simultaneously adding to one Google doc. I've told people that I work better if instead I have one specific section to work on that's all mine. I also have taken on an unofficial role of editor/proofreader, which kind of makes up for the times when I don't write as much. On another note, don't go overboard with school supplies until you figure out what you actually need and what works best for you. Before school started, I bought a planner which I use religiously, but I also bought two big white board calendars, where I thought I could write due dates and events. I just used the planner for all that and the white boards are almost unused. One more thing: I know some supervisors (fortunately none of mine so far) will want you to come up with cutesy, creative clinic materials, and at first it will be hard to figure out how to adapt materials to a specific client, so you'll end up making a lot of your own stuff, but DO NOT go overboard making stuff! In the real world you will not have the time to spend two hours on one activity for a single client, you will have to use whatever you have on hand and adapt it for 8 different clients throughout your day. Learn how to go minimal. If you have a kiddo client, use games and toys from your school or placement. If you have an adult, you can get away with almost no materials, especially if you're working at the conversational level. In my first semester, I spent about two hours working on materials for an activity that lasted 15 minutes. The worst part is I had taped Magnetic Poetry words to different colors of construction paper. I didn't want to lose the words, so after my session I dismantled everything and had nothing to show for 2 hours worth of work. That was a wake-up call. The rest of the semester I stuck with plain old word lists and artic cards from the materials room.

I researched some private practices in my area and emailed a few: one let me observe. It was convenient because I could go for a couple hours after work and didn't have to take any time off. There was also no red tape (background checks, etc) to worry about, which I've heard can be a pain about observing in schools and hospitals. However, if you're interested in becoming a school SLP then it would be more beneficial for you to observe in a school to get a good feel for it.

I'm not sure if you're interested in speech-language pathology (or have even heard of it-- but if you haven't that's fine, most people haven't), but there's a lot of overlap with linguistics and there's a huuuuge shortage of Ph.Ds. If you were to complete a Ph.D in it (most likely it would be called Communication Sciences and Disorders or something similar) you would be pretty much GUARANTEED a teaching position, maybe even at a top university. The field is also fairly new, so there are some large gaps in the research literature and great potential to make a significant research contribution. Some examples of areas to specialize in include autism, speech sound disorders like apraxia, brain injuries, bilingual language acquisition, literacy, or social/pragmatic aspects of language. Most people entering the field get a Masters and complete clinical practica to be certified to work in schools, hospitals, or other settings. However, if you have no interest in the therapy aspect, you could get a doctorate without going through all that.

At first I didn't think I was going to jump into the fray, but I can feel @Adelaide9216's frustration and pain palpating through the screen. I know all of you are trying to be helpful and give her the harsh truth as you see it, but as someone who's been reading her posts for a year or so now, it feels a bit like you're crushing her soul. I know how much effort she's been putting into her work and how much all her hopes and dreams depend on passing the thesis. I gasped when she first posted about failing. I don't think she's trying to pass the buck and blame everyone else, she just poured out her soul at a time when she is feeling very vulnerable and stressed out, and I think it's kind of sad that people who have purportedly read her posts think this is an appropriate time to deliver the "harsh reality" in all its cold, unsympathetic harshness. @Chanandler made what may have been a valid point, but I can think of a few different ways it could have been stated more positively without hurting her to the extent that it did. Maybe I'm too soft and taking this too much to heart, but I like to think that if I reached out like this in a state of heartache, I would receive sympathetic support instead of a damn peer review.

I got into NYU last year, but the financial aid notice hadn't come in yet by April 15th, so I declined and went with the sure thing (a partial scholarship at an in-person program). However, since it's already past April 15th and you added these schools to the FAFSA kind of late, I would wait as long as you can to see if some sort of financial aid package comes in. It's also good to keep in mind that most if not all grad school scholarships are not need-based but merit-based. If you don't get something from the school, you'll definitely get enough money to cover the full cost of attendance through FAFSA, but it will all be loans. If you don't get some sort of financial aid from either school it might be best to wait until next year and apply to some cheaper schools.

Aside from safety, noise, and getting as much stuff included in rent as possible, these are probably my two most important factors in a place. Avoid oil heat like the plague: if you live in a cold climate, it'll cost you a fortune. Hundreds of dollars per fill up, multiple fill ups a year unless you keep it like a fridge all winter. Never again! And not having laundry in the building royally sucks. I procrastinate doing laundry as much as possible because it's such a chore going to the laundromat. It's also a huge time sink because the wash cycle isn't long enough to go do anything. Then for the dry cycle you have time to drive home for a half hour and then drive back again. Never again! Noise level is also very important to me. I would hate to have one of those apartments with thin walls where you can hear everything. Living in a house with one apartment per floor isn't that bad as far as noise goes, especially if you're on the top floor.

Personally, I've really been loving the break from some of the adult stuff. Maybe it's because I'm already an old person (33 next week), but I worked 50+ hours a week for the last 4 years (while doing school online, so I was a zombie), and now I just go to class and sleep till 9 am. It's AMAZING. It won't last forever, so count your blessings while you're here! Adulthood isn't always as great as it's cracked up to be.

Have you filled out the FAFSA yet? If not, do so immediately! It's not super hard, just kind of tedious. Grad students count as independent students, so unless you had a great career before entering grad school you'll probably qualify and get all the loans you need from that. You should end up with the Stafford loans (subsidized and unsubsidized). If you still need more than this and your credit is alright you can get Grad Plus loans to cover the total cost of attendance beyond what the Stafford loans offer, including living expenses. That's also done simply by filling out the FAFSA. I have to say, going forward it would definitely behoove you to figure out the financial stuff as soon as possible. Money matters are no joke and can take time/effort to get things together. I've dillydallied with getting financial aid before and royally screwed myself because I missed a deadline. Going forward, check your school's financial aid page for any deadlines, call/email them if necessary, and check for any random requirements that could delay receiving your aid money!

I agree with @Toya about accepting the sure thing. It sounds like your alternative is going through a lot of extra work (and expense due to an additional degree, application fees, GRE scores, etc) to prolong your journey for no real guarantee of acceptance (not saying you wouldn't get accepted again later, just that the grad school gods are capricious and no one can be too sure!). I do think that placements might be tricky due to the other programs, but I think NYU does work with you to find placements, so I don't think you'd come away empty-handed, you just might not be able to get your dream placement.

I took it as part of my online post-bacc at Pacific University. There were short video lectures (maybe 15-20 minutes a week), readings, and worksheets that helped us learn the structures/muscles. I don't think we had any discussion boards, though, so it wasn't super interactive, but I personally don't find that necessary. I think if it were more theoretical material that was well-suited for discussion and thorough explanations that would be one thing (for instance, my child development course had lots of discussion posts and video lectures of at least 1 hour a week) but A&P is so memorization-oriented that I don't think it really needs to be interactive. That being said, everyone's different. If you've never taken an online course before, it might be quite an adjustment. However, in my mind, online courses don't make it harder to learn/retain content. I think what matters more is duration of the course: I also got my undergrad degree online. I took one course at a time for five weeks each. I still learned a lot, but in some courses I retained practically nothing because it was just too short. I think even in an in-person courses, condensed courses are difficult and I just don't remember the information as well. Now, that also being said, I don't think it's really that important that you retain EVERYTHING you learn in A&P. The structures of the larynx and oral cavity are important, but I've forgotten almost everything I learned about the torso/lungs and most of the face muscles because we just don't use most of that information in grad school. Focus on the larynx and you'll be fine!

I took my anatomy course online and learned a ton (although I definitely didn't retain all of it because there's just too much: all those damn torso muscles suck). There will probably still be video lectures wherever you take it, so I didn't feel that I was missing out at all. I would HIGHLY recommend stretching it out over a longer period of time. I think for most people (me included) A&P is the hardest prereq due to the sheer quantity of memorization required, so taking it in an intensive 4-week stretch sounds like hell.

From what I've heard, it seems like a good program will teach you everything you need to pass. It's still a good idea to study, but I've heard of some people who took it without studying and passed, just because their program was solid. I would be concerned that if that many people aren't passing, the program is missing some components that show up on the exam. That doesn't mean people can't still go there and become good clinicians, it just might have to be a little more self-directed with more Praxis prep. Personally, though, I would be hesitant to go anywhere with a pass rate of below 85-90.

I ended up with a really good cohort, and I think most people have made some good friends. I'm a shy loner at heart and I've made some friends! A few of us are currently doing Game of Thrones watch parties!

Wow, what a small world! I suppose it could be a different Malinda Howard, but that's the name of my supervisor at my upcoming summer placement!

Have you checked out the SLP forum on Grad Cafe? If not, go to the main menu and scroll down until you get to Professional Programs. I think most of the CSD peeps on here hang out exclusively in that forum and don't check out the rest of the site. I'm pretty sure you'll find someone if you ask there!

Your grad courses will definitely do some review at the beginning of each semester. They know that some people come from different backgrounds and/or may have graduated a while ago, so I don't think you'll feel too lost as long as you do some basic review. Don't spend your whole summer studying! I think the most helpful things to refresh on would be IPA, neuro, anatomy, and maybe some developmental milestones (again, not crazy amounts!) just so that you feel comfortable with basic brain structure, English phonemes, and the larynx.

I did my undergrad online, so no emotional connection there in the slightest, but leaving my job last year was tough. It was just an office job in a trucking company, and I worked with a bunch of middle-aged blue collar trucker dudes (talk about culture shock!) but it was a family business with good owners and I worked with the same people day in, day out for over three years. I thought I was fine on my last day, but I started crying as I walked out to my car and sobbed all the way home. I'm also already starting to feel this way about my current program. My cohort is really great and the building is my second home. It bums me out that I only have another year with them, and we won't even see each other much the last semester. I'm also a terrible correspondent, so I already know I'll lose touch with them eventually.

For me it came down to an in-person versus online program. Online would have been great because I wouldn't have had to move and could have kept working the first year, but I felt that as an out-of-fielder I needed the support of an on-campus clinic to ease me into therapy. If I'd had more relevant experience my choice may have been different, but I'm really glad I made the right choice!

If you haven't heard of/looked into Imposter Syndrome yet, I suggest you do so. I think most (if not all) people entering a grad program feel this way to some degree (thinking you're not good enough, why did you pick this field, everyone else in your program is so much smarter than you, etc). I think even once you graduate you might feel this for the first few years. Fight through it and remind yourself that you got chosen for a reason!