University of Arizona Fall 2016 Season

[alexagrace]

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

[racoomelon]

I already asked a few questions, but I thought I'd put them out here so other people can benefit! (I also had some additional questions that I've thought of, so I have ulterior motives.) Sorry in advance for the slew of questions!

1) What are the funding opportunities like and do they offer very many? Do they typically offer MS students TA positions or GA positions? Also, if I were to find a GA position with another department (like the bookstore), would I feasibly be able to put in 20 or so hours for that position? 

2) I expressed an interest in phonological disorders in children as well as bilingual language acquisition, which I'm still very interested in. However, I also enjoy learning about neurogenic language disorders and I might work better with adults than with kids. Is it possible for me to get placements in both areas?

3) How big of a role do faculty advisors play? If I chose one who has different research interests than my own, should I switch to a professor whose interests line up with mine?

4) This is along the lines of #1, but are you able to work part-time in this program? And if so, how many hours would you say you're able to put in?

And I think that's it! 

[glueear]

How much do you and your peers pay for housing?

[glueear]

Also, do you have any insights into how the recent and ongoing reduction in state funding for higher education in AZ has affected UA and the program?

[racoomelon]

1 hour ago, glueear said:

How much do you and your peers pay for housing?

I'm living in Tucson right now!

The house my two roommates and I live in is 450 a month, but ~500 or so with utilities. Our house is fully furnished and we live by the major bike lane that leads directly to campus. I lived about 30 minutes driving from campus my sophomore year and the rent was around 380 for a four bed / four bath, full furnished apartment (that was hell to deal with). We only paid for internet and electricity there. Then during my junior year I lived within walking distance of campus. We had a two bed / 2.5 bath condo that was fully furnished (a trend you might be noticing) and paid for electricity and internet. It was $400 for each of us, but we were two to a bedroom. So I would say that was by far the most expensive housing-- if we weren't willing to share a bedroom it would have been ridiculously pricey. 

[alexagrace]

On 3/18/2016 at 4:15 PM, glueear said:

How much do you and your peers pay for housing?

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!

[alexagrace]

On 3/18/2016 at 3:23 PM, racoomelon said:

I already asked a few questions, but I thought I'd put them out here so other people can benefit! (I also had some additional questions that I've thought of, so I have ulterior motives.) Sorry in advance for the slew of questions!

1) What are the funding opportunities like and do they offer very many? Do they typically offer MS students TA positions or GA positions? Also, if I were to find a GA position with another department (like the bookstore), would I feasibly be able to put in 20 or so hours for that position? 

2) I expressed an interest in phonological disorders in children as well as bilingual language acquisition, which I'm still very interested in. However, I also enjoy learning about neurogenic language disorders and I might work better with adults than with kids. Is it possible for me to get placements in both areas?

3) How big of a role do faculty advisors play? If I chose one who has different research interests than my own, should I switch to a professor whose interests line up with mine?

4) This is along the lines of #1, but are you able to work part-time in this program? And if so, how many hours would you say you're able to put in?

And I think that's it! 

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.

[racoomelon]

@alexagrace I think I actually met one of the pregnant ladies you're talking about! I was doing an observation and the student I was observing was pregnant with triplets. 

ASHA reported that 14 students generally get some form of funding help, but I take a lot of what EdFind says with a grain of salt haha. They might not actually give out that much funding. But I'm guessing that the program has more tuition scholarships to give out than assistantship positions, so I'm really hoping I get something. Out of state tuition for UA is no joke! 

And that's very good to know about clinical placements. I haven't had a lot of exposure to the clinic on campus, so I'm not entirely sure what we have going on. But I can see how we'd have more child-based positions than adult-based-- most of the faculty I've met have had a research focus based on children.

[racoomelon]

Has anyone heard about funding for Arizona? The deadline we're supposed to hear by is April 5th, but I'm wondering if they've started to send things out.

[crepetown]

@alexagrace, thank you very much for your responses and for starting this thread! I accepted UA's offer last week and I am so excited to start the program. This thread has been quite helpful to me. If you don't mind, I have a few of additional questions for you:

Could you please talk about what the class/clinic schedule looks like during one's first year (e.g. MWF 9-5 classes, TR 1-3 clinic)?

I was also wondering if you were completing a master's thesis for the lab in which you have received a research assistantship. At a few schools that I visited, it seemed like the only way to receive an RAship was to write a thesis, so I was just wondering if this was similar at UA. 

Thanks again!

[alexagrace]

On 4/20/2016 at 6:32 PM, crepetown said:

@alexagrace, thank you very much for your responses and for starting this thread! I accepted UA's offer last week and I am so excited to start the program. This thread has been quite helpful to me. If you don't mind, I have a few of additional questions for you:

Could you please talk about what the class/clinic schedule looks like during one's first year (e.g. MWF 9-5 classes, TR 1-3 clinic)?

I was also wondering if you were completing a master's thesis for the lab in which you have received a research assistantship. At a few schools that I visited, it seemed like the only way to receive an RAship was to write a thesis, so I was just wondering if this was similar at UA. 

Thanks again!

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!

Edited April 28, 2016 by alexagrace

[racoomelon]

@alexagrace How many clients do you normally see in the first semester? And in the second?

[alexagrace]

5 hours ago, racoomelon said:

@alexagrace How many clients do you normally see in the first semester? And in the second?

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.