jchen25

Hello,
First year grad student here - yes it is very possible! I was Linguistics and Psych undergrad and now I'm attending Penn State's grad program (they were one of the few programs I applied to who accepted out of field students). Very happy and very grateful!
Good luck to you in your application process!

I bought the 6 month magoosh GRE prep and found it extremely helpful. I'm not a strong standardized test taker and it really helped me. I studied for about 3 months off and on and the final month I studied quite a bit. I definitely could have studied more, but even with that little amount of prep I was able to score 152 V, 153 Q, and 4.0 W. Not the most amazing score but definitely fine when applying to grad school. The questions from magoosh are super similar to those on the GRE if not a little bit harder. It also gives you projected scores, and my ultimate GRE scores were exactly what magoosh predicted. If you are able to afford it I would 100% recommend magoosh. It's almost fool proof and does all the work of creating a study plan and coming up with study questions for you. Also the complete breakdown of each question in written as well as video form is super helpful. 

Also, having multiple planners is useful. I have a physical planner where I write everything down, then I have a digital planners. I use google calendar for events going at school or just in my life. I use the iStudiez Pro app for my school work, such as assignments, classes, and exams. I think I will use this for my TA position and maybe RA as well. I then have this physical notepad where each page has the seven days of the week where I can write out what I need to do for that week.
It sounds chaotic, but you gotta do what you need to in order to stay organized and have everything planned out.

To be honest I still haven’t found an ideal way to balance all of my responsibilities (I’m a TA and and RA), but one thing I have been doing is using Trello to keep track of all my projects and tasks, and then plan out my tasks at the beginning of every week. I also use an app called Toggl to keep track of how many hours I’m spending on my RA and TA work. I find having set tasks is less overwhelming to my brain, instead of saying “now spend 5 hours doing this” I can focus on accomplishing something and I’m more productive. Then timing the tasks allows me to make sure I’m spending the right amount of time on each project each week.

Here are is my personal pro/con lists for medical. Full disclosure, I'm most interested in medical outpatient rehab, but a lot of this is based off of experiences in acute care. If I didn't do medical, I would want to work in a private clinic, but not a school (a little bit about that below). Sorry for the novel, I hope it helps!
Medical Pros:
Many different types of settings: acute care (hospital), outpatient rehab, skilled nursing facilities, pediatric hospitals, etc. Fast pace and on your feet: I've shadowed an acute care SLP, and as a restless person I love running all over the hospital to get to patients' rooms, talk to nurses, etc. Working with patients with acquired neurogenic disorders. Getting to conduct and analyze VFSS barium studies with a radiologist. Short prep time (for acute) and little/no standardized assessment: Unlike a school or outpatient setting, most patients will only be seen by the SLP once or twice, so things like a long standardized language test (which can be tedious to administer) aren't usually used. Assessment/treatment focuses on the most important things. Dysphagia: I wasn't all that interested in dysphagia before shadowing, but it's actually really exciting because it's so important for the patient's care. You're actually making a difference in helping keep this person safe. And again VFSS are fun! Counseling: If you really enjoy the counseling component, you will get ample opportunity for that with both patients and families (often in the midst of really intense situations). And on top of that it's been my experience that the other hospital professionals are a touch burnt out and because of SLP's/ASHA's emphasis on counseling, the SLP is often the brightest part of the day for these patients. Making a difference: Like the above, you may be a real light to patients. I once watched a man writhing in pain start singing because he found the SLPs oral care with the toothette so soothing. Had to stop myself from tearing up. Independence: It's probably true of most settings, but where I volunteer, the SLPs divvy up the patients on there own and spend as much or little time as needed with each patient.  You appreciate what you have: I know this is weird, but working with people who are sick and usually 70+ makes you appreciate your youth and health and has inspired me to try to live life to the fullest and to eat healthier. It has also made me want to cherish the time I have with my older family members while they're still healthy. Potentially higher salary: generally medical SLPs are paid more (school SLPs have the opportunity for higher pay in areas with higher demand - definitely not a firm rule that medical SLPs make more, but common). Job security: As baby boomers continue to age, SLPs will be in higher and higher demand and there won't be enough. (Let's get some more qualified applicants into grad schools!!!) Medical Cons:
Oral care: Oral care is so important because the bacteria in the mouth could eventually make its way into the lungs should the patient aspirate. Ideally this would be something the nursing staff manages, but that's often not the case. The other day an SLP showed me a picture of a mass of food she had pulled off a patient's hard palate. Sometimes patients have like a white crust or some other residue that the SLP works on with toothettes.  Dysphagia: It's a pro, but also a con if you have a somewhat weak stomach. The other day a patient started hacking and the SLP took ample time examining the phlegm she coughed up. Sometimes there's anterior spillage, pocketing, etc. You do grow more accustomed to it, but things still get me sometimes. Playing off the last point, speech/language makes up a very small part of the job if in acute care. Cognition is a little more prevalent, but dysphagia is the big thing you will do because keeping the patients safe is the highest priority. Also, the patients are often in no place to begin working on language/speech. That being said in an outpatient setting, you would probably work much more on speech/language than dysphagia. Charting: Just like any SLP job, there is a lot of charting and often more time is spent on that than with patients. Life or death: If you're working primarily with dysphagia, it's so important you're present and thorough in assessment and charting since your patients' health/lives and your own liability are on the line. Working with families/doctors/nurses: Families are at an understandable low point and the SLP can be an easy target to receive their frustrations. Nurses do important work, but can also seem a bit burnt out and sometimes that can be felt. Though I haven't seen this where I volunteer, I've heard sometimes doctors can be really disrespectful to all other staff, including SLPs. Sometimes it's heartbreaking: Sometimes the intensity is what makes it so great, and sometimes it's just hard to see. For me, these moments have been with terminal cancer patients and their adult children.  Not sure if this is a con, but if you're not in a pediatric setting, patients are usually geriatric, and you'll start referring to the 60-year-old as the "young guy." The youngest patient I've seen was in her late 40's. A little bit on schools: I didn't want to say much on schools, because I'm not passionate about working in one so you should hear from someone who is. However, my biggest turnoffs from working in schools are the overloaded case loads, IEP meetings, and working with parents. At least in the area I'm in, SLPs have massive case loads and much of the treatment is done by SLPAs (woot woot!), with SLPs doing a lot of assessment and documentation. (I have heard  private schools can be less hectic). Parents are passionate about protecting and getting the best for their child, and sometimes that can be intense. That's completely understandable, but I don't think I have the right skill set to enjoy working with them on a regular basis (the same reason I never wanted to be a teacher!).  

I'm going to enter my first year of graduate school at Penn State Fall 2019 and have just been offered a Research Assistantship that will begin then as well. It will be approximately 20 hours/week. I just wanted some perspectives or past experiences that people have had in regards to balancing school and work.
Thank you!

Haven't received anything about funding yet... has anyone accepted the offer? Have you received anything about registration for classes? I received an email about pre-registration but haven't received account information yet for the student portal.

If anyone attends, could you post any relevant info? Thank you!!

I'm curious about funding as well. Do you know when that will be released?

I'm also out of field and applied for Fall 2019. I applied to 3 graduate programs that include prerequisites: Penn State, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, GWU. I was rejected from UIUC and accepted to the other two. I started my research from the US News Ranking and kind of went down the list to see which schools would accept out of fielders and of those, which I'd be interested in attending if I was accepted. Also, ASHA EdFind was pretty helpful in terms of stats for GPA and acceptance percentages.

I've heard this program is quite competitive to get into, so you should be proud of yourself! Best of luck to you!!

thank you so much! you have no idea how much this helped me haha good luck with everything!