What do you want to be when you grow up? This is the question that nearly every child is asked, knowing that they probably have no idea. I always wanted to work in the medical field because I love helping others, but the sight of blood is not for me. This created a challenge for me because I knew it would be hard to find a job I would enjoy. Over the past few years I began doing research and learning about different jobs, which led to my interest in becoming a speech pathologist. This job isn’t very well known in this area and many people don’t even know it exists. Achieving this degree will create many challenges for me, but I am ready to face them.
Today’s speech pathologists are faced with many challenges. However, the field of speech therapy is unique in that when the speech pathologist overcomes a challenges is more often that not a significant triumph in the patients life. It is of massive importance for speech therapist have the following traits good interpersonal skills, the ability to take another’s perspective and problem solving skills.
During my interview with Speech Pathologist, Deborah Kirsch, I learned countless details about the Speech Pathology career field. When we first began talking, I learned that Mrs. Kirsch works out of a company called “Professional Therapy Services”, where she is contracted out to work for “Eunice Smith Nursing Home” which is located in Alton, Illinois. She has been working at this facility for about a year. She is a newly found graduate from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, and she graduated in May 2011. Another thing that I learned about Mrs. Kirsch is that she originally did not go to school to become a speech pathologist, this was a career that she found later in life. After she had graduated from SIUE, the first time with a bachelors in Psychiatry, she started working at a nursing home around this area. She came to know a Speech Pathologist that worked there and she quickly found the field very fascinating. She had always been driven to help others, and she witnessed some of the exercises being done with individuals at the nursing home and decided to go back to school to get her masters in Speech Pathology.
"If you fail to plan, you plan to fail." I can hear one of my grandmother's highly regarded quotes resonating inside my head. Apprehension consumed me when I entered college as an undecided major. Unexpectedly that all changed a few weeks into my first semester. My grandmother had a stroke which ultimately affected her speech and was in dire need of a Speech Pathologist. This is what initially sparked my interest in this field. I was determined on working with the geriatric population because of the experience and attachment I endured with my grandmother. However, the irrefutable fact that this is my passion became evident when I started working as an Assistant Teacher at Clarke Schools for Hearing and Speech.
Many people would like to make a difference, not only in their own life, but in others’ lives as well. Deepak Chopra once said, “Everyone has a purpose in life…a unique gift or special talent to give to others. And when we blend this unique talent with service to others, we experience the ecstasy and exultation of our own spirit, which is the ultimate goal of all goals.” All of us, at one point in our lives, have to make the difficult decision of the goals we want to work towards. We all have certain goals, standards, and expectations of ourselves. Not everyone will figure out what they want to be right away, and some will know from the very beginning. My plan for my life is helping others through Speech Language
Upon first entering college, I struggled deciding at such a young age what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Through babysitting and volunteering with pre-school aged children at my church and through a school program called STARS, it became evident to me I had a love for helping children. It fascinated me to see how they viewed the world around them and how quickly they learned new truths everyday. Nevertheless, I knew I would not get the full enjoyment interacting with children as a schoolteacher because the teacher to student ratio is so large. Classroom demands would make it much more difficult to devot individualized attention to each student, and I did not like that concept. So
Language is beautiful and wondrous phenomenon. Not only is it a crucial component in everyday communication, but it also accentuates the culture of those that speak it. As a student pursuing a career in speech-language pathology, the aspects of communication, such as language, are the pillars of my future profession and will be deeply embedded into my daily life. There are many reasons I have chosen this path, but my childhood friend, Jasmine, can be accredited with my finishing decision to become a speech-language pathologist. When I was in elementary school, Jasmine was one of my closest friends, but I did not always get to play with her at recess because she frequently had to see an audiologist, or go to speech therapy. Jasmine had a congenital
From being diagnosed at a young age with dyslexia and apraxia of the speech, I am not sure where I would be without the help and encouragement of my speech pathologists. ‘Speech-language pathologists assess, diagnose, treat, and help to prevent communication and swallowing disorders in patients’ (Summary, www.bls.org, 2015). Along with helping their patients overcome or learn how to understand their disorders, speech pathologists must keep records.
I am Samantha Peterson, as a child I was taught to be independent in my beliefs and to always follow my heart wherever it led me. I have always been one to go after what I want and never give up until my dreams are fulfilled. I plan to finish my associate degree at AB Tech and transfer to Western Carolina. I plan to graduate from Western Carolina with a master’s degree in speech pathology. Once I complete this phase in my life I hope to pursue my career and start a family of my own. To begin my career, I hope to still be employed at Mission Hospital, but as a speech pathologist rather than a medical assistant. As a speech pathologist I hope to make life changing improvements in people’s everyday lives that I cross paths with. While beginning
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” As a child, we have all been asked this question; and as unrealistic children, we all had dreams of being a superhero, princess, cowboy, or astronaut. Later on in life, as time went by, and as we became more knowledgeable, our answers became more serious. Some of us wanted to be teachers, business owners, or a veterinarian. However, I have always wanted to be a doctor, but not just any doctor. For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be a pediatrician. Now, half way through my junior year in high school, I have started to question the details of this career, and all the hard work it takes to become a part of the medical field.
I am writing with great interest regarding a potential speech-language pathologist opening at Gull Lake Community Schools. During the spring of 2014 I completed an internship at Richland Elementary, working under Shawn Herron and Stacy Robbins. I believe I had the pleasure of meeting you a few times as well. I have spoken with Mrs. Robbins regarding the possible opening this fall and she advised I send my resume to you.
I had a dream of a career that would allow me to utilize my skills, my motivation to help others, and would catalyze change. Speech-language pathology has allowed me to lead my life with purpose, the purpose of empowering others. This empowerment is gained by my assistance in overcoming speech related deficits and disorders as a speech-language pathologist
When people ask me why I chose this field, I always get a feeling that my reason is somewhat of a disappointment once I tell them. I blindly chose this field the night before UNT orientation. I had very minimal knowledge of what it entailed, and I knew of one woman who was a Speech Pathologist and enjoyed it, so there I was the next day getting my course schedule filled out by Lauren Mathews. My quick impulse and “go with the flow” attitude of this event still somewhat surprises me, but it’s not without success.
When I was younger, every time someone would ask “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, I went for the standard answers – either a doctor or a flight attendant. But as I grew older, the answer became as clear as a mud. The only thing that wasn’t vague was that I wanted to help people. Nurses, in the simplest but most accurate definition, help people. And as lost as I am, I know that that is what I want to do. I’m most likely going to be a general nurse practitioner first. However, there are a lot of fields that I am ridiculously interested in such as Psychiatric, Forensics, Legal, Neonatal, Neuroscience, and Oncology. Some of these do require further study but I have to wait as I really, really want to help my family first.
While I am considering how I want my future to look as a Speech Pathologist, I have also taken much time to think about where I want to end up geographically and what populations I wish to work with. Detroit has always been a city that has been very close to my heart. Detroit is where my family grounded themselves when they first settled in the United States. This city had given so much to my family. This gave me a desire to return to our roots in Detroit. It is also the disadvantaged populations and underfunded schools in Detroit that give me such a passion for wanting to work in this city. The lack of funding to the Detroit public schools infuriating to me as it limits the amount of services these students can receive. I find important to
I want many things in life but the thing I want the most is to be a doctor. I want to be useful to this world. I want to make god happy for creating me. I want to be a doctor because there are many people who are in desperate need of medical attention, but either can’t afford it or there is no medical services near. I want to travel to poor countries with poor medical attention and offer free medical services. I also want to major in surgery and therapy because the there are many diseases that require surgery and some people had been through many bad events and need help getting over them. Many people don’t want to go to therapy because they thing that therapy is for crazy people. I want to educate people with low resources on important things that are beneficial to their wellbeing as well as the wellbeing of others. I also want to teach young teens about