bibliophile222

I took an honors anatomy class which I think was very useful when it came time to take undergrad anatomy! Yes there are differences between the courses but I think having some background knowledge gave me an advantage. I would start volunteering at places too such as with the medical population (retirement home, hospital, etc.) or with the special needs population. But of course if you begin in high school be sure to stick with it in college too. Or you can wait to volunteer in college. I took child and human development classes as my electives and Spanish classes too which I thought having those in my background helped. If your high school doesn't offer those types of things don't worry you'll have similar courses in undergrad. You don't need Spanish or any language but knowing a second language always helps. Taking AP courses helps get gen eds out of the way too especially those required by ASHA such as AP psych, AP bio, AP physics/chemistry. But I only took AP psych and was fine so if you can't take AP classes you'll be okay! I suggest also working on your time management and organization skills early on too!
Intro to healthcare sounds interesting you should try it out!

Focus more on exploring what your really want out of life! It doesnt really matter what you do in High school as long as it gets you into the school you want to go to. You and your aspirations will most likekly change as you get older. So just focus on exploring, if you really like speech pathology you will inevitably come back to it.

I picked up my diploma today. I think now it finally feels 100% official! I am now Bibiliophile222, M.S., CF-SLP Candidate.

I am sorry to hear that your paper got rejected. But I hope you feel better in me saying that you are not alone. A LOT of academics get their papers rejected in their life, probably everyone. Almost everyone's first paper gets rejected. I know faculty to this day who papers are still rejected. Take the advice that is given to you from the rejecters and make it better/work on it. You will probably get rejected again (maybe not, but maybe so) and its OKAY. You are not the first and you won't be the last. It happens to everyone and it will happen to you again. If not on this paper, probably others. So please, take time for yourself to heal and then take this energy and do productive things with it. Being a Ph.D. Student (or anyone in any career) means you will hear more NO then Yes in your lifetime. Don't let the fear of NOs scare you from your goals. If you can't get passed this, then I'd say maybe a Ph.D. isn't for you because rejection comes with the territory, from papers, fellowships, awards, assistantships, book deal etc. 

I'm pretty sure it depends on the school. My graduate program said it's okay for us to take the ASHA science requirements pass/no pass but I know some of the other programs I applied to asked for a letter grade, so I would check with each individual program you're applying to.

The first thing you should do is relax. If you weren't qualified, you wouldn't get in. Second, if you have a mentor you will be working with you, you can email them to see if there is anything you can get a head start on. If not, just relax. This may be the last time you have some free time for awhile depending on how rigorous your program is. Also, people dress however. I'm in a doctoral program, and on teaching days I will dress a little more professionally. However, most of us are wearing leggings/jeans and a t-shirt. I wouldn't necessity wear a ratty old t-shirt with holes and stains, but general athletic attire is not generally frowned upon if all you're doing is going to class. 

Yep! It's amazing how many good restaurants are packed into the Amherst/Northampton area. 

I'm a second year so I haven't already started but I do have some advice! I was so so set on being a medical SLP and grinding my way through hospitals to get a competitive medical CF - then COVID happened. My advice is just to open and know that this a field you can jump around within for your entire career. So my advice is more about doing this during COVID.
Think of everything you do and every supervisor you interact with as a chance to figure out what you like and don't like and what type of SLP you want to be. I was annoyed the semester I had a full peds caseload but found that I was just as excited working on social skills with neurodivergent kiddos as I was when seeing post-stroke adults but I had to adjust my thinking to accept that. I felt like if I ended up with a CF in a school I was a failure but after mourning the reality of COVID, the fact that our externships are limited and our resumes will look different than expected, I've been able to just keep running lists of what I like about every population I encounter. You might still have a shot at medical externships depending on how the virus goes! Unfortunately, we've been told that hospitals are off the table for Fall and Spring (our only remaining options). We've ALSO been told that hospitals are actively thinking about how to combat this loss of experience and planning to add structured training to CF positions. The whole field is figuring it out!  
Oh unrelated: keep a positive feedback file on your computer! Anytime my supervisors give me something really positive or new I keep it in there so I can refer back when I start letting constructive feedback feel too personal. You got this!!! 
TLDR; Be open! Don't limit yourself! Get as much variety as you can and don't get stuck in your thinking. 

It's Amherst, right? Wow, I miss those spots!

This is an odd survey. First of all, YouTube is not social media, it's a content platform; including it is like including Netflix in your list. Secondly, when you ask "Who do you go to when feeling distressed," there is no "Friends" option (and you misspelled the word "Guardian"). Thirdly, there's nowhere for a respondent to indicate that they don't use social media at all. 

I got aboslutely amazing and extraordinary professional opportunities in the last couple of weeks alone. Opportunies that I would've never dreamed of in my entire life. Plus ,I am no longer single. Thank you life.

I was just going through some old files from undergrad and found something that made me cry from laughter.
My undergrad was online at a for-profit school, so there were some students that, well, maaaybe weren't ideal candidates for higher education, to put it politely. In one class there was this girl who wrote INSANE discussion posts. In addition to the terrible grammar and lack of insight into the topic, her posts were incredibly long and veered from wild tangent to even wilder tangent. She found vocab words (I'm guessing from the thesaurus in Word) that made no sense in context but substituted them in for simpler words. 
So it turns out that I saved all of this girl's bizarro discussion posts in a Word doc and was able to reread them all. It feels like Christmas!
I think my favorite line is "The cusp is that ants are a common living thing these days. That will never go away. The cogent is how many are there???"
Amazing.

Personally, I get excited exploring a new area, and I've moved enough in my life to not really feel homesick. The hardest part of moving for me this last time (I know this is silly) was finding new restaurants. I'd lived in my previous area for over a decade and had many an amazing meal at Johnny's Tavern, Thai Garden, Ginger Garden, The Black Sheep, and Primo Pizzeria (major bonus points if anyone can guess where I was living!) After two years in my new location, I still feel like I don't have a favorite pizza or Chinese place, and I'm lacking that strong connection to the businesses that I had before. 
I guess the moral of the story is that I shouldn't eat out so damn much!

Welcome to the GradCafe

I recommend that you hold still on the reaching out for at least sixty days. COVID-19 has turned the Ivory Tower upside down, especially at public institutions.
During the interval, see what you can find about the institution's financial position and plans for the coming term. Can you find program guides / schedules of classes / other materials that may allow you to sketch out a plan of action in terms of your course work? Can you identify a handful of "must read" books and start reading them?
A second recommendation for immediate implementation is that you change your username to something that allows a very high degree of separation between any future posts you may make here and your personal professional self. Changing your username now is easier than having to remember not to vent when it is time to vent in the venting thread. 

I'm lazy by nature, so for me the hardest part about moving is making the effort to make new friends.

This is definitely hard to do in grad school, but try to maintain as much work-life balance as possible. Go to school every weekday (if you're in an on-campus program) and get as much work done as possible at school so that you have some time to decompress at home. It took me until my last semester to realize that when I don't do my work at home, it's easier to treat school like a job and work hard all day instead of procrastinating and taking lengthy breaks like I did. Of course, sometimes this isn't always possible (especially in a pandemic when we're all stuck at home) but it helps!

This is definitely hard to do in grad school, but try to maintain as much work-life balance as possible. Go to school every weekday (if you're in an on-campus program) and get as much work done as possible at school so that you have some time to decompress at home. It took me until my last semester to realize that when I don't do my work at home, it's easier to treat school like a job and work hard all day instead of procrastinating and taking lengthy breaks like I did. Of course, sometimes this isn't always possible (especially in a pandemic when we're all stuck at home) but it helps!

I would say that GAs are definitely worth it! I did a 10 hour GA for 15 credit remission per year and ~$120 per week, however much that comes out to a year. My GA isn't even in my department, but I have found it very worthwhile for the tuition remission, the scheduling/flexibility, and the convenience (working on campus while (presumably, with COVID) also taking classes on campus and living nearby). I'd imagine that an in-department GA would be even better, for all of that plus the SLP-related experience. However, you'll ultimately need to weigh out the pros and cons of whether or not more money from a different job would be worth it to you. Grad programs can't actually prohibit you from getting a part-time job but they are discouraged by many programs, not in the least because, unlike a campus job, they may not be as flexible as necessary (though some jobs are much more well-suited to people from our program than others).

I've heard from my professors that many schools do not look as hard at the quantitative portion as they do the verbal & writing - but take that with a grain of salt! I know a few fellow classmates who were able to get into a graduate program with scores similar to yours. I still would advise taking it again as this is a very competitive field and it is always better to be safe than sorry. However, I think you would still have a strong application regarding your experiences/GPA. Ultimately, it boils down to what you will be the most comfortable with.
You should look into taking the GRE at home due to the COVID-19 crisis. I'll link the official ETS website below for more information. That may help ease your test anxiety. Best of luck! You got this. 
ETS: Take the GRE Remotely

I've TA'd quite a few undergraduate courses at different levels, and what I've learned so far is:
1. The students who show up to extra sessions or are otherwise really engaged will fall into two groups: those who are dedicated but just aren't prepared for the content, and those who are acing it. The apathetic middle is really hard to engage. 
2. It's easier to teach students who are struggling. Maybe this is a personal preference thing, but I'll take a business student struggling in calc over someone precocious any day. And if your students are way above the level expected for an undergrad or you're not completely familiar with the content, you end up in an arms race where you're trying to keep 10 steps ahead so you're still the expert in the equation.
3. Don't tutor/teach a subject you're not an expert in. Just don't do it. I made that mistake once and it was hell because while the students could dedicate hours every day to the subject, I had other things to do. I was learning the content while trying to mark assignments, and then fielding questions from those advanced students. Start by teaching intro stuff. 
4. Decide early on how much time you'll dedicate to students. If you're going to have intensive one-on-one sessions with one student who's struggling then you do need to offer the same to every other student. If you're not willing/able to do it for everyone then don't do it. 
5. Set clear expectations at the start, both for you and them. Tell them when their assignments are due, where, and what the late penalties are. But also tell them how long it'll take you to mark them, and how long you might take to respond to emails. If you need them to check their emails every day, tell them that. Everyone claims they want total freedom but what people really want are clear guidelines and rules.
6. Set professional boundaries and always be wary of students overstepping them, especially if you're a woman. Younger students in particular will see you as an authority figure and source of pastoral support not unlike their high school teachers. They might come to you with some very serious concerns, including abuse and suicidal thoughts. Think ahead for this kind of stuff -- know who you need to contact, what you need to do, and also what you should do to help the student. Read up about what language you should use to address student concerns without appearing to dismiss or ignore them. If you feel concerned or uncomfortable about a student for any reason, escalate it. You are not their therapist.
7. Avoid discussing your students online, or even in person, unless it's in the most vague terms humanly possible. A complaint about a student who's needy or who doesn't do the work could be identifiable to someone. Yes, it's your job and sometimes you'll get frustrated, but avoid gossiping about your students. Approach this like doctors do for their patients. 
8. Remember that your students might have quite different goals, and don't assume you know what those are. Not everyone is aiming for graduate school or academia, not even the top students. Industry shouldn't be an alternative, it should be on equal footing as academia. 
9. You will get tired. Starting to TA at the beginning of term is easy, but once it gets near the end you're going to be bogged down in your own work and with little energy left for neurotic undergrads and their final exams. So just be aware that any standards you set at the beginning (e.g. in providing extra tutoring sessions) will need to be upheld for the entire term, even when you have more important deadlines to worry about. 
10. Take notes at the end of every session/tutorial for what worked and what didn't, plus any relevant notes about specific students (especially if you have to provide individual reports to them). You won't remember to do it tomorrow or next week. You won't remember to fix that example problem that didn't work out. 

I was just going through some old files from undergrad and found something that made me cry from laughter.
My undergrad was online at a for-profit school, so there were some students that, well, maaaybe weren't ideal candidates for higher education, to put it politely. In one class there was this girl who wrote INSANE discussion posts. In addition to the terrible grammar and lack of insight into the topic, her posts were incredibly long and veered from wild tangent to even wilder tangent. She found vocab words (I'm guessing from the thesaurus in Word) that made no sense in context but substituted them in for simpler words. 
So it turns out that I saved all of this girl's bizarro discussion posts in a Word doc and was able to reread them all. It feels like Christmas!
I think my favorite line is "The cusp is that ants are a common living thing these days. That will never go away. The cogent is how many are there???"
Amazing.

Hi, I attended the post-bacc at CSULA, so I can only really speak to their program. I would say it's somewhat competitive, but certainly not as much so as the grad program. They can only accept a certain number of students into the post-bacc since the classes are usually held in-person and you are sharing spots in classes with the undergraduate students as well. I am not sure how covid-19 will affect future post-bacc cohorts. The application was just your transcripts and a personal statement about why you wanted to pursue speech pathology. 
I would encourage you to try not to stress too much about this. As others have mentioned, there are many options to complete your post-bacc coursework including lots of great online programs. The road to completing your prereqs and applying to grad school is a long one and working to manage your stress will really benefit you in the long run.  Focus on breaking down what's stressing you out into the things you can control and things you can't control, and then you can work on those things that are actionable.  

So, I've truly never been a procrastinator...until grad school. Yup! I was the kid that finished their book report the day or day after it was assigned. And this past year, I've had to more actively attend to assignments and work harder to not procrastinate, so that was new for me.
I actively use a planner to keep everything together like due dates, meetings, study time. 
I have found that making a to do list of tasks (however big or small) has helped. If I have projects or big assignments on my list, I might work on one for a designated length of time, take a break then chip away at the next one. While I prioritize based on due dates, I try to chip away at the other assignments to avoid procrastinating one to the last minute. 
I also like to motivate myself by planning breaks (big or small). For example, if I work on this diligently on this project for the next 2 hours or so, I can take a break and watch an episode of a tv show and relax guilt free. Planning breaks helps me to look forward to something while I'm working so I don't get distracted as easily. 
I also think that being a reflective learner is helpful, to know things about yourself as a student. Like if you work better in the morning vs. night time, with background noise (TV, music) vs. total silence to be able to create a perfect study environment and not potentially dread studying as much that I've found can lead to procrastinating. 

I've been a horrible, chronic procrastinator since 3rd grade but managed to turn everything in on time during grad school! What helped me the most was using a planner. I would write down what needed to be done each day and then cross it off. Crossing things off was incredibly satisfying. There were plenty of times when I didn't get each day's tasks done, but seeing it there un-crossed-off would nag at me so that I still completed it before the deadline. 
Another thing that just naturally helped was when things were due. Generally, I would do my class readings during the week because they required less mental energy than writing. I therefore saved the bulk of my written work for the weekend, when I had two whole days to do nothing but schoolwork. Since things were generally due at the beginning of class, I always ended up finishing work a couple days before the due date. If something came up and I couldn't finish it on the weekend, I would still have a few days of wiggle room.
The third thing that really helped me was to break up tasks into smaller chunks. If you have to read 4 chapters, read one each day instead of putting off all of it. One day, do the research for a paper, the next day write an outline, and the third/fourth days write the paper itself. Write down each step in your planner so you can cross it off and feel motivated.
One of the good things about grad school is that a lot if your work will be practical: either clinic documentation or practical assignments. Theres more motivation to get the work done because it's less abstract and more meaningful. Also, this may vary by program, but we didn't have any long papers to write. All our teachers taught us to be succinct and enforced maximum page limits, so I hardly ever wrote anything longer than 4 or 5 pages, which made it easier to avoid procrastinating. 

I've been a horrible, chronic procrastinator since 3rd grade but managed to turn everything in on time during grad school! What helped me the most was using a planner. I would write down what needed to be done each day and then cross it off. Crossing things off was incredibly satisfying. There were plenty of times when I didn't get each day's tasks done, but seeing it there un-crossed-off would nag at me so that I still completed it before the deadline. 
Another thing that just naturally helped was when things were due. Generally, I would do my class readings during the week because they required less mental energy than writing. I therefore saved the bulk of my written work for the weekend, when I had two whole days to do nothing but schoolwork. Since things were generally due at the beginning of class, I always ended up finishing work a couple days before the due date. If something came up and I couldn't finish it on the weekend, I would still have a few days of wiggle room.
The third thing that really helped me was to break up tasks into smaller chunks. If you have to read 4 chapters, read one each day instead of putting off all of it. One day, do the research for a paper, the next day write an outline, and the third/fourth days write the paper itself. Write down each step in your planner so you can cross it off and feel motivated.
One of the good things about grad school is that a lot if your work will be practical: either clinic documentation or practical assignments. Theres more motivation to get the work done because it's less abstract and more meaningful. Also, this may vary by program, but we didn't have any long papers to write. All our teachers taught us to be succinct and enforced maximum page limits, so I hardly ever wrote anything longer than 4 or 5 pages, which made it easier to avoid procrastinating.