At the last NSSLHA & PASO
meeting, we had seven lovely grad students and one PhD student talk to us about
what it’s like to be in their shoes. They had copious amounts of information,
so I thought I would share a few. It’s a little lengthy, but feel free to skip
to the topics that interest you the most.
Speech vs. audiology: How do you pick between the two? A lot of
their answers had to do with previous experience. Some had shadowed SLP’s
before while others had seen their own family members suffer from a hearing
loss-swaying them into audiology. However, the PhD student reminded us that
there is also a research aspect to both majors, so students shouldn’t feel
pressured to only pick in becoming speech or audiology clinicians.
How they ended up at Purdue: Purdue is a well-known college to many
countries. The professors are the best and they are very passionate about their
work. Many of the students came here not only for the professors, but also for
the location, cost, new building, hands on experience, and more!
How many grad schools did they apply to: Each of the girls had a
different number of schools they had applied to. The lowest number was three,
but her reasoning was because her undergrad school had an auto-admit program-so
she already had a school she could go to. The highest number was fifteen,
because she had changed her major quite a few times. Overall, the average
number the ladies applied to were about five to nine schools.
Externships: When you leave for an externship, you are required to
find your own transportation there. For speech, the schools had to be within an
hour radius. To do an externship, you can basically go anywhere in the country
as long as the person you are working with has their CCC. Some girls mentioned
how they will actually be going back to their hometowns and living with their
parents, because that will save them a lot of money.
Application Fee’s: Between audiology and speech pathology, the fees
are pretty similar. It depends on the school, but it usually costs anywhere
between fifty dollars to one hundred dollars per application. For sending your
GRE scores, some schools cost around twenty-seven dollars, and sending your
transcript is free at Purdue.
When you get accepted, do you find out about assistant ships?: Again,
it depends on the school. Some will offer you the assistant ship along with
your acceptance letter. However, one of the girls mentioned how she got offered
an assistant ship a month after she got accepted. But the girls advised us to
take matters into our own hands and call the schools ourselves to ask about any
financial aid we could get. Dr. Krishinan also reminded us that there are lots
of opportunities to find funding outside of the department. For example, you
could tutor in English, be a swim coach at the pool, work in the libraries, etc.
More advice!!!
-Be patient when
hearing back from your schools. You will hear back around March and April, but
then don’t forget to pick your school by April 15th!
-If you are doing an interview, don’t forget to take into
account the time difference.
-When you take the GRE, you can send your scores to four
schools for free!
-Never lose your passion for what you’re doing, because
it’ll keep you going.
-Finally, just be organized and don’t forget to take a
little time for yourself.
Again, a big thanks to the eight ladies that took their time
to help answer all of our questions! :)
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