SIUE Open House

[Hk400]

Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville (SIUE) has an open house for accepted students this Friday, March 25. I already go here for undergrad and was accepted, so I'm planning on attending this. Is anyone else planning on coming?

[slpdee]

I'm likely going to accept my offer from SIUE and really wish I could go to the open house, but can't make it as I live in California, my budget has been tight and I have a midterm that day. Could you let me know how it goes? I see that you've been accepted to several places; do you think you will be accepting this offer too? 

[Hk400]

I actually already accepted my offer here since it was the most convenient option for me in regards to the location, price, and I already have a feel for how things work here. But I can definitely let you know how it goes. Is there anything specific you want to know about?

[slpdee]

I mainly wanted to go to see the campus and get a look at the area as well. The website has been pretty informative, but I'm interested in learning about funding (if there is any) and if we have a say in placements for the externship opportunities. I may be commuting from St. Louis if my fiance can get a transfer there.

Did you enjoy undergrad there? What are the professors like?

[Hk400]

I have enjoyed undergrad here and I've liked most of my professors too. You can tell that they actually care about the students and do their best to be available to everyone. I haven't had any problems if I needed extra help or just to talk. Also some of them have pretty unique research interests; I believe one of them is doing research about working with transgender clients. I've also appreciated that my class is very small (about 25 people), so it's also pretty close knit and the current grad classes seem small too.

Hopefully, my answers weren't too vague, but I'll try to remember to ask about funding and externships. 

[slpdee]

That is a really small undergrad class; mine has been close to 80 students! Also transgender voice and modification has been an interest in mine too. Thanks for the info! It's greatly appreciated.

[Hk400]

No problem!  My class and the classes before us have all been really small, but they decided to switch things up so the junior class has around 70 people!

But, at the open house they talked about how to get grad assistantships because they don't automatically award them to people. Dr. Chleboun said there are some positions available through our specific department, but many people have also gotten assistantships in other ones as well. She gave out a paper with a link to view and apply to available positions. Here's the link: http://www.siue.edu/graduatestudents/postings.shtml She also said you may want to call and check with different departments to see if there were some that just weren't posted. 

As for externship opportunities, they said that the externships are in the final semester, and we will be placed in both an 8 week medical externship and an 8 week school externship. That semester we only have one class, which is a "hybrid" and it's mostly online with some meeting times on campus to make things easier. The location of the placements tend to be within a 60 mile radius of the campus (including St. Louis and a little more North), and they said they are willing to work with students to try to find one in the area you want.

I also want to let you know that Illinois' budget issues were discussed since it is a public university, our department and school are doing pretty well right now, but you may still want to look into it for yourself. 

If you want to know anything else, let me know.

[slpdee]

Yeah I had heard about the Illinois budget problems and it does make me nervous to be honest. This is especially because i have to pay out of state tuition if I go with SIUE, but thanks for the assistanship link and information! It's good to know that we can apply to other departments as well.

[speechie217]

Has anyone created a facebook page for SIUE's program!?

[Hk400]

@speechie217 I've looked but I can't find one, so I don't think anyone has yet.