Not all of us are graced with a friend who is a Speech-Language Pathology major or lucky enough to be one ourselves, but if you are one or know one, there are things we all do. It's happens to mostly everyone in their respective majors, but SLP majors might be a little stranger than others. It's a field driven by curiosity, research and clinical experience, and the people around us, become perfect for studying.
1. We notice any accent you have
Even if you think its subtle or don't notice it, the standard Speech Path student can pick up that you over-stress your Ts at the end of words or you elongate your Os. You might not even have and accent but we've been trained to spot variations in normal speech, and for the times we've pointed it out, sorry.
2. They ask to look in your ears and mouth
This is one of those curiosity things. In class we learned you can see some people's epiglottis, Bifid uvulas, scar tissue from tubes in the ears, or other things, and we want to see. All the anatomy of the ear and mouth become basically the foundation for the major and everyone is a little different. Plus better to learn now than in the field one day.
3. Clinic, clinic, clinic
We aren't as nuts with clinic as some other majors about Clinical and internship (looking at you nursing majors) but its required that at least 25 hours of observations are completed to graduate with an undergraduate degree. And the write ups that accompany them? Forget it, its basically enough to be a small book.
4. We have cried at least once
For some of us, its like at least once a week. There is always an impending mental break down at any point. This major is difficult, maybe not the most difficult but it is definitely not for everyone. Even those of us who it IS for, struggle. Like every major, sometimes you just don't get it, and for us that's scary due to the competition of grad school and GPA requirements some of us need to meet.
5. We write in our own little alphabet
This doesn't apply to everyone, but in the Speech-path world knowing the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) inside and out is one of the foundations for the rest of the major. While some of the letters are recognizable, there are also other symbols, and the letters you do recognize probably don't sound the same as they do to the average person. So we kind of do have our own little code, and yes those are real words and they make sense to us.
6. Graduate school meltdowns
Not only is this a requirement, but its EXTREMELY competitive to get in. There have probably been tears at least one time throughout the overall applying and or thought process of grad school. GREs, letters of recommendation, personal statements and resumes are all just a small part of what needs to be done. We hate the question "Oh what school are you going to go to?" the answer is simply where we get in.
7. GPA is love, GPA is life
Some schools don't stress this when you're attending undergrad, as where others have a minimum of a 3.0 to even stay in the major. GPA is so important especially with how competitive graduate school is and basically if we have anything under a 3.5, our life goes into a downwards spiral and we re-contemplate our entire existence. So yeah some of us freak out when we get a bad grade (yes we sometimes consider Bs as the equivalent of failing) but that's just how it goes in the "Speechie" world.
8. We adore it
Yes, school is super stressful and we might have full mental breakdowns throughout the semester, but actually being in the field whether a clinical, internship or an observation, there is no way to describe the feeling. So yes, we may rip our hair out studying for that psycholinguistic test (I bet you didn't even know that was a class) or stay up all night writing a clinical case study and fake IEPs, but doing things like teaching a stroke victim to speak again, or helping a mute child be able to tell their mom "I love you" through an assistive device or any other scenario you may stumble upon, but there isn't a better feeling in the world.
