Volunteer/Hands-On Experience

[jascms]

OK. Here me out here on my predicament. I could be overreacting because of my anxiety, but I feel I need some input...

I'm a rising Junior who will be an out-of-field applicant. I'm not so much concerned about my pre-reqs or finding a 3yr program, but I'm having difficulty finding volunteer experience. Here's the issue: most volunteer places ask for references. I've only had one job and it was a measly summer job so I don't feel it is appropriate to ask them (plus, the manager was a bit rude so I'm not sure how it would go). I tried to find a new job this summer but to now avail ?

The psychology program at my school is VERY big and classes rarely fall under 45 students so it is difficult to get to know a professor on a personal level. I'm going to try to start going to office hours and such, but even if that works I'm feeling like it's now so late already to start the volunteer experiences. 'm going to volunteer at this place for once summer and I'll be graduating already! I feel like I've set myself up for having no volunteer experience, which makes it that much more difficult to get LOR and such. I don't know, maybe I just need to get this all out there.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? How did you guys go about getting LOR, experience, etc? I don't live in a big city AND I go to school in a tiny rural town, so the opportunities aren't exactly plentiful to begin with. Thanks for any help!!

Edited June 27, 2018 by jascms

[Southwestspeechie]

8 hours ago, jascms said:

OK. Here me out here on my predicament. I could be overreacting because of my anxiety, but I feel I need some input...

I'm a rising Junior who will be an out-of-field applicant. I'm not so much concerned about my pre-reqs or finding a 3yr program, but I'm having difficulty finding volunteer experience. Here's the issue: most volunteer places ask for references. I've only had one job and it was a measly summer job so I don't feel it is appropriate to ask them (plus, the manager was a bit rude so I'm not sure how it would go). I tried to find a new job this summer but to now avail ?

The psychology program at my school is VERY big and classes rarely fall under 45 students so it is difficult to get to know a professor on a personal level. I'm going to try to start going to office hours and such, but even if that works I'm feeling like it's now so late already to start the volunteer experiences. 'm going to volunteer at this place for once summer and I'll be graduating already! I feel like I've set myself up for having no volunteer experience, which makes it that much more difficult to get LOR and such. I don't know, maybe I just need to get this all out there.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? How did you guys go about getting LOR, experience, etc? I don't live in a big city AND I go to school in a tiny rural town, so the opportunities aren't exactly plentiful to begin with. Thanks for any help!!

As long as you can include these experiences in your application, it is not too late  I am also an out of field applicant and all of my LORs were from professors: 2 from Spanish classes, and 1 from a psychology lab. If you can, I highly recommend working in a research lab, as that's a great way to get a LOR and have an important experience in your SOP. While it is a great idea to get outside experience, I found that most schools want all of your LORs from professors, so try to establish relationships with them. 

One other tip is to get LORs from phD level faculty. I do not know how your school is, but at mine we had quite a few professors that were grad students or only had their master's degree. 

As for getting experience, it was really difficult for me to find some too! Does your area have ABA therapy places? I got over 25 hours of observation of speech therapy at an ABA place, where a speech pathologist also worked. It might be worth it to see if your area has one. 

Good luck to you and let me know if you have any other questions! 

[jascms]

1 hour ago, Felice said:

As long as you can include these experiences in your application, it is not too late  I am also an out of field applicant and all of my LORs were from professors: 2 from Spanish classes, and 1 from a psychology lab. If you can, I highly recommend working in a research lab, as that's a great way to get a LOR and have an important experience in your SOP. While it is a great idea to get outside experience, I found that most schools want all of your LORs from professors, so try to establish relationships with them. 

One other tip is to get LORs from phD level faculty. I do not know how your school is, but at mine we had quite a few professors that were grad students or only had their master's degree. 

As for getting experience, it was really difficult for me to find some too! Does your area have ABA therapy places? I got over 25 hours of observation of speech therapy at an ABA place, where a speech pathologist also worked. It might be worth it to see if your area has one. 

Good luck to you and let me know if you have any other questions! 

Thank you so much! I've definitely looked into a research lab. Not many of them are really directly applicable to speech therapy, but I suppose the experience would be helpful nonetheless. 

Thankfully, almost all of the professors at my school have PhDs so that shouldn't be difficult. I'll for sure look into ABA places - you usually need some sort of certification/training to work there right? 

[bibliophile222]

I don't want to discourage you from volunteering, since it does look good on an application and is just a good thing to do in general, but if you can't find anything it probably won't be a deal breaker. I had no volunteer experience because I was working 60 hours a week, so I made sure to put my weekly hours on my CV to help explain my lack of other extracurriculars. Of course, the lower your GPA/GRE, the more you'll need to emphasize relevant experience, so try to focus on your stats as well.

[Jordyn_M463]

i am not an out of field applicant BUT I really don't think it matters. I didn't have any volunteer experience and none of my letters of rec were CSD or SLP related. They weren't even close to be honest. You could shadow an SLP or multiple SLPs during school breaks and use that as some experience on your resume if you are worried that you need to list something. But I honestly don't think it will matter all that much. It just depends on the schools you apply to!

[Southwestspeechie]

On 6/27/2018 at 7:52 AM, jascms said:

Thank you so much! I've definitely looked into a research lab. Not many of them are really directly applicable to speech therapy, but I suppose the experience would be helpful nonetheless. 

Thankfully, almost all of the professors at my school have PhDs so that shouldn't be difficult. I'll for sure look into ABA places - you usually need some sort of certification/training to work there right? 

I worked at a child development & schooling lab, so it was not directly related either! It's all about making connections between what experiences you have to the field of speech path. For example, I talked about how transcribing interviews related to me getting better at listening to people's speech more closely. A lot of schools will like to see research experience as well because it means you could possibly work in their labs. Most of the skills from psychology labs are useful in speech labs too!

I was just an intern at an ABA place so I did not need any extra certification and only had to attend one orientation before starting. It probably depends on the place and what position you are going for. 

Hope that helps!