"2014-15 (So Far!) at Purdue"

Hello all!

 Purdue NSSLHA’s chapter has done a wonderful job thus far, in getting involved and making a difference. Below are a few short summaries of the events we have had this year:

• “Let Indiana Hear” – NSSLHA members recorded a short clip to be in one of the advocacy videos for Indiana Hands and Voices. This organization provides support for families of children who are deaf or hard of hearing. They provide education, hope, advocacy, and resources to hundreds of families throughout the state of Indiana. 
• NSSLHA Loves Campaign-NSSLHA members raised funds throughout the year and made a donation of $250 to the NSSLHA Loves Campaign, which supported Hands & Voices. 
• Purdue Crossroads Conference–This conference was open to professionals and students in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences. Professional speakers covered a wide variety of topics, and NSSLHA members helped run and organize the entire two day conference with approximately 200 attendees. Afterwards, NSSLHA hosted tours of the new building at the conference reception for attendees. Additionally, our chapter wrote for a grant and received $5000 from the Purdue Student Organization Grant Allocation Board to support the annual conference. 
• Arc Dance-NSSLHA organized and attended a Valentine’s Day dance for adults with intellectual disabilities.
• ASHA conference- NSSLHA executive team member Katie Courtaney and NSSLHA faculty advisor Christi Masters presented at the 2014 ASHA Conference on the topic "Developing Intercultural Competence". They collaborated with three Purdue Audiology Students Association (PASO) members and the PASO faculty advisor after a study abroad trip where they provided clinical speech and audiology services in Zambia.
• Career Awareness Day- Two general members planned activities related to speech and hearing, and then presented it to sixth graders involved in College Mentors for Kids. They created a Power Point explaining the roles of SLP’s and AuD’s, and then had stations set up with activities that SLP’s and AuD’s do with clients. Another fun component these members added was providing earplugs. They educated the students about listening to music at a safe volume to help prevent hearing loss. 
• Professional panel- NSSLHA invited a professional panel of seven certified SLP’s and AuD’s to talk about their experiences within their professions. 
• Tour to Ambassadors-NSSLHA members provided information about the Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences major as well as a tour of the new building to a group of ambassadors who give tours of Purdue's campus to potential incoming students. 

 I’m proud to say that all of these events were a complete success! However, the school year isn’t over just yet. We still plan on having a few more fun-filled events: 

• Egg Hunt- NSSLHA will organize this event close to Easter holiday. All the children that come to our speech and hearing clinic will be invited to enjoy an adventurous day of looking for candy-filled eggs. 
• Student/Faculty Snack-NSSLHA and PASO are collaborating to organize a lunch where undergraduate and graduate students mingle and get to know professors and other students in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences at Purdue. 
• Spring Fest-This free annual university event will be held at Purdue on April 18 and 19. It is open to adults and children as an opportunity to learn from many departments on campus through fun hands-on activities. NSSLHA will have a table and provide participants information about speech-language pathology and audiology. 
• Seniors- Graduating NSSLHA seniors will give the undergraduate students an insight on their senior year. They will mostly provide us with information pertaining to filling out graduate school applications. 
• Virtual Advocacy Day- On Tuesday April 21, we will anticipate on having at least 50 NSSLHA members partake in this event. To find out more, check out this link: http://www.asha.org/NSSLHA/events/Virtual-Advocacy-Day/

NSSLHA Valentine's Arc Dance

Hello NSSLHA!

Last night was our annual NSSLHA Valentine's ARC Dance. The ARC is an organization that provides a plethora of opportunities for adults with intellectual disabilities. I felt truly lucky to be a part of last night's event, because these guys really deserve a night filled with fun and laughter. Everyone seemed to be having a great time dancing, mingling, and doing art's and crafts. I already can't wait for next years dance!

And a special thanks to Audrey Sheffler (our NSSLHA Historian) for planning such a wonderful event! Kudos to you girly :)

GRAD STUDENT TALK 2014

Hello everyone!

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 15^th!

-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! :)

Graduate School Talk

Last week at our NSSLHA meeting, Dr.Huber talked to us about graduate schools. As this mostly applied to juniors and seniors, it was very critical for freshman and sophomores to pay attention, because they will be going through the same process in less than three years.

Since I am currently a junior and have been a part of NSSLHA for three years, I have now heard Dr.Huber’s talk for the third time. Every single time I listened to her speech, I rigorously took notes and tried to absorb as much information as possible. I thought it would be helpful if I did a recap of some of the things she had talked about in case students needed a refresher or if someone had not attended that meeting.

GRE

-Try and get over the 50^th percentile. How can you do this? By studying a lot!

-Your overall goal of taking this test is to be able to answer the question without knowing the answers.

TRANSCRIPT & GPA

-When graduate schools look at your transcript, they want to see that you took harder classes such as math and sciences. They don’t want to see you take multiple easy classes and get a high GPA. For example, they would rather you take a hard social science class and get a little lower GPA rather a few art classes and a higher GPA.

LETTERS OR RECOMMENDATION

-Ask people that know you well! The points of these letters are to get to know you better.

-Try to get at least 1 letter from our SLHS department. You want 3 letters, sometimes 4, depending on the schools you apply to.

-It’s also more polite to ask the professor in person rather than an email to see if they can write you one.

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

-This is one of the most important parts at Purdue!

-Let your true and authentic self come onto the paper. Make sure this part is reflective and not just you listing things like you would on a resume.

-Make sure this part is read and reread multiple times! There should be no spelling and grammar mistakes.

I truly believe that if you work hard on all of these parts and get everything turned in on time, you will have a better chance of getting accepted into your dream schools!

Good-luck to all of our fellow seniors applying to grad schools! We believe in you J

Welcome! Fall 2014

Hi Everyone!

I’m continuing the blogging for our Purdue NSSLHA chapter to keep everyone updated on what is happening with the SLHS program here at Purdue! This will also be a great way for underclassmen and upperclassmen to ask any questions they may have about classes, scheduling, and the SLHS major in general.

IMPORTANT NEWS:  Our first NSSLHA callout for the fall semester is on Tuesday, September 2^nd at 6pm in the NEW building Lyle’s Porter room 1160.  Oh and did I mention there will be FREE pizza?! 

I hope everyone had a great summer & I can't wait to see some new and old faces at the callout!

TEDx at Purdue!

Hey all!

Tomorrow, SLHS Professor Dr. Huber will be one of the featured presenters in the TEDx talks at Purdue.  There are still plenty of tickets left so you should check it out, it is only $10 and a great way to support the department.  In honor of the TEDx event at Purdue tomorrow, I thought I'd share with you some of my favorite TEDx videos!  TEDx is one of my favorite web sites because their are speakers from every walk of life.  The informative talks aren't lengthy and are easy to understand, so browsing on this site is time well spent :)

Here are some of my favorites related to the field:

A neuroscientist experiences a CVA in the left hemisphere, this may be one of my all-time favorites https://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight
A phiscician who thinks critically about cochlear implants: https://www.ted.com/talks/charles_limb_building_the_musical_muscle
Early diagnosis of autism: https://www.ted.com/talks/ami_klin_a_new_way_to_diagnose_autism
How to lower the impact of noise in our environment:
https://www.ted.com/talks/julian_treasure_shh_sound_health_in_8_steps

On a side note, I know it's been a extremely joyous and stressful time for the seniors these past few weeks.  When you're facing disappointments, remember that your self worth is not based on your awards or accomplishments but on the kindness of your heart.  I struggle with this constantly, but it's important to remember to only compete with yourself, and to work to make yourself better for you so you can be the best clinician you can be.

February Reflections

Hey everyone!  WOW has this month flown by, I didn't think the end of February would sneak up on me as quickly as it did.  It was an eventful month so I thought I'd share with you some of my reflections from this past month.

First of all, thank you to everyone who participated in the ARC Valentines Day Dance!  It was a huge success and it was so great to see you all fully involved, putting yourself out there and having a ton of fun doing crafts, and of course having fun on the dance floor!

Right before the dance, I watched a great TEDx talk given by a woman with Cerebral Palsy about disability in the media ( http://www.ted.com/talks/maysoon_zayid_i_got_99_problems_palsy_is_just_one.html), and it made me observe just how much the media influences the attendees of the dance.  So many individuals with disabilities have celebrity idols they can look up to, yet they themselves are underrepresented as actors, musicians, producers, etc. 

 Fortunately, we live in an age where disability is being represented more often in television such as  Switched at Birth.  Michael J. Fox is a wonderful advocate for those with Parkinson's Disease and continues to act.  Companies such as American Girl Doll sell toys who have crutches, hearing aids, and wheel chairs to comfort children and help them feel understood. Yet, if they aspired to be a professional actor or musician, they may face the same struggle Maysoon Zayid did when she was constantly rejected as an actress, even  when she auditioned to play a character with CP.

So how can we as future Speech-Language Pathologists and Audiologist change this stigma in the media?

Do you have a favorite celebrity with a disability?  Please share so we can support them as a community!

Also, many seniors have been receiving interviews for and acceptances into Graduate programs, congratulations to you all!  It is so wonderful to see how your hard work has paid off.

Have a great weekend and stay warm!