Tips for New Grad School Students!!

[vheart]

Like most of you here I am SUPER EXCITED to start my masters program this fall for SLP!!! It's taken me a lot of work and dedication to get here and I want to make sure to maximize my time spent this upcoming two years. With that said I am also so so so nervous about this new chapter in my life. 

Hoping to hear from some current or past grad students on what they wish they knew before starting classes? Any tips? Advice? Words of wisdom? I would love to know <3

 

[j_rae]

Bump! lol

[fernandes]

There are some threads on this topic that might be useful to you, not specifically for SLP, but here it goes:

 

[jpiccolo]

Take advantage of your cohort. Mine has relied on each other so much and it has really helped. I don't think we would've made it without each other. Hopefully you won't have a super competitive or cliquey cohort. We help with studying, therapy ideas, ranting, etc. You might not be best friends with everybody but if y'all can avoid drama and get along then that'll be huge. 2 years is a long time!

Try to schedule in some breaks. For awhile a few of us did movie nights on Saturdays just to stop doing school for a couple hours and hang out. 

Im not sure I have much I wish I knew. grad school is tough but it's more time consuming than academically challenging. Balancing clinic and class has been hard but doable. I started last June and now the first year is finally over and by far it'll be the worst year. If you can survive the first couple of semesters you'll be fine! Just gotta stay motivated and keep going because it's so easy to get burned out. Highly recommend making a paper chain near the last couple weeks of a semester to count down how many clinic days were left haha.  we put ours in our materials room. 

I can't think of much else. It'll be intense but you can do it! Soon you'll wonder where the time went as you head off to an externship and then you can give advice to the new grads. Good luck!

[timberlake]

7 hours ago, jpiccolo said:

Take advantage of your cohort. Mine has relied on each other so much and it has really helped. I don't think we would've made it without each other. Hopefully you won't have a super competitive or cliquey cohort. We help with studying, therapy ideas, ranting, etc. You might not be best friends with everybody but if y'all can avoid drama and get along then that'll be huge. 2 years is a long time!

Try to schedule in some breaks. For awhile a few of us did movie nights on Saturdays just to stop doing school for a couple hours and hang out. 

Im not sure I have much I wish I knew. grad school is tough but it's more time consuming than academically challenging. Balancing clinic and class has been hard but doable. I started last June and now the first year is finally over and by far it'll be the worst year. If you can survive the first couple of semesters you'll be fine! Just gotta stay motivated and keep going because it's so easy to get burned out. Highly recommend making a paper chain near the last couple weeks of a semester to count down how many clinic days were left haha.  we put ours in our materials room. 

I can't think of much else. It'll be intense but you can do it! Soon you'll wonder where the time went as you head off to an externship and then you can give advice to the new grads. Good luck!

I agreed! Getting into grad school is competitive, so we spend undergrad focusing on competing with other students for the best grades/experience/recommendations/scores/etc. Don't fall into that trap in grad school. You've already made it. Now it's about personal development and becoming the best clinician you can be. Don't try to out do other students (you'll just wear yourself down). Don't stress out about getting straight As. There's no Cum Laude distinctions in graduate school. I'm not saying don't try to do your best, but Bs get degrees . Just learn the material and be able to apply it. 

Keep organized (duh). Put dates in your planner. Start work early. Use the time in the beginning of semester when things are relatively calm to get a head start on  assignments. Study a little bit everyday. Keep up with your notes. You'll feel so much better during midterms and finals.

You don't have to make elaborate therapy materials for each session. Embrace low/no prep activities! If you can, write SOAP notes and enter time logs immediately after therapy (just a good habit and you don't have to worry about it later). 

 

[BonnyLass]

Definitely develop some camaraderie with your cohort if you can, contribute to a culture of sharing info and helping one another out, even if grants are competitave, even if not sharing gets you an edge. Study together, share resources. 

Talk to your professors. Ask them if they have side projects they need help on. That's how you get the little research grants and the extra help/info, and the reference letters! 

 

Attend the extra workshops and events your program provides and start to develop a niche interest, see which populations/environments you most want to work in, look to see if there's some topic that your program offers that isn't as available other places, especially if grants are available for those topics!  Maybe extra aac training, Maybe early intervention stuff, special popultions, cultural sensitivity, etc. 

If you can, try and find 1 thing extracurricular that you can do to show that you're a really well rounded student. Maybe volunteer tutor or something, but only if you feel you can handle that. Its just a question I am often asked when applying for extra $$, whether or not there's anything outside of school I'm doing (workshops etc)

And get a fitness related hobby to balance out the sitting time writing stuff! Haha

[iwontgiveuponslp]

Well if you go to a school like I did and you were not an undergrad at that school make sure to ask your supervisor what is expected of you if you start clinic your first semester. By that I mean, ask specifics like how much are you expected to already know and what is expected of you if you do not know what to do or where to find the answer. There are unspoken rules and for me I had to find out the hard way. Good luck! 

[orange23]

Also does anyone have any advice on what we should do in preparation right before grad school like in the summer? I took a few years off, so I honestly have forgotten basically everything! I don't wanna be behind, esp since some people will have just finished pre reqs and the info will be fresh in their minds. But I also don't wanna waste my time and study for things that probably won't have a big impact for grad school.  For ex should I go in knowing the phonetic alphabet? 

[timberlake]

7 hours ago, orange23 said:

Also does anyone have any advice on what we should do in preparation right before grad school like in the summer? I took a few years off, so I honestly have forgotten basically everything! I don't wanna be behind, esp since some people will have just finished pre reqs and the info will be fresh in their minds. But I also don't wanna waste my time and study for things that probably won't have a big impact for grad school.  For ex should I go in knowing the phonetic alphabet? 

I took 3 years off and I was worried I would be behind when I started. I bought an old Praxis review book and I intended on reviewing some of the basics. Honestly, I never got around to it  and I was fine.  The only time I felt overwhelmed was the first day of my dysphagia class where we reviewed anatomy, but so did everyone else! Everyone will go through a learning curve in beginning no matter when they graduated. The most I would do would be to brush up on some basic A&P and phonetic transcription. 

[thespeechblog.com]

I was really worried about this exact topic when I digitally met someone who had literally the day before graduated from his masters in SLP. We had a really good conversation about this experience which I turned into this blog post (http://www.thespeechblog.com/tips-for-grad-school-success/). In the end, he said it is all about the little stuff (being respectful, organizing your time, etc, etc). I felt a bit more grounded after the convo, so I thought I´d share it with you all here. 

[wcslp]

On 5/24/2016 at 1:32 PM, orange23 said:

Also does anyone have any advice on what we should do in preparation right before grad school like in the summer? I took a few years off, so I honestly have forgotten basically everything! I don't wanna be behind, esp since some people will have just finished pre reqs and the info will be fresh in their minds. But I also don't wanna waste my time and study for things that probably won't have a big impact for grad school.  For ex should I go in knowing the phonetic alphabet? 

I also took a year off before applying, and I emailed our department advisor about this. She ended up contacting the professors of our first fall classes, who then compiled a list of things we needed to know before grad school began and sent this out to our cohort. FWIW, IPA was on the top of that list.

[thespeechblog.com]

4 hours ago, wcslp said:

I also took a year off before applying, and I emailed our department advisor about this. She ended up contacting the professors of our first fall classes, who then compiled a list of things we needed to know before grad school began and sent this out to our cohort. FWIW, IPA was on the top of that list.

Do you happen to still have the list? 

[n22]

On June 8, 2016 at 9:24 AM, wcslp said:

I also took a year off before applying, and I emailed our department advisor about this. She ended up contacting the professors of our first fall classes, who then compiled a list of things we needed to know before grad school began and sent this out to our cohort. FWIW, IPA was on the top of that list.

Would you mind posting the list! That'd be so helpful!