Every major has its own quirks, it's own inside jokes and just like every other major, communication disorders is no different. Being a part of this major has changed my life and all of the little quirks that I have experienced over the last four years have impacted me and given me memories for the rest of my life that I can look back and laugh at and hopefully you can too.
1. Trying to write normally after learning phonetics.
Once you've discovered the new and interesting language of phonetics, it's almost like you have a secret code to send messages in. It's got weird shapes with dots and lines, some letters look the same, vowels actually represent other vowel sounds. The only downfall of knowing this secret code is you find yourself leaving notes for friends, writing notes for other classes and even making your grocery list in phonetics and it feels impossible to make yourself stop.
2. Quietly assessing every child you meet.
Once you know what certain speech disorders sound like, you find yourself listening for them. You hear it in T.V. shows and movies, you listen for it in every conversation you have and worst of all, you notice it with every child you come in contact with. Once you hear it, it becomes this nagging fly in the back of your head that won't let up. Make sure you don't let the parents find out you're a CDI major or the nagging fly will fly out of your mouth and scare them to death.
3. Waiting 30 minutes to sign up for one 45 minute observation.
You went through all your HIPPA training and you can finally sign up for observations, class ends and you rush down to the clinic to sign up for your first one. You turn into the office and instead of walking straight to the sign-up sheet, you run into a backpack, more specifically, a line of backpacks. Everyone in your class managed to beat you down for sign-ups and because of this, you get stuck with the last available observation slot at 8 a.m. on the Friday that you only have one afternoon class. Guess what, it only gets better, that client will probably cancel.
4. Having your shadowing/observation session canceled... again.
You are required to get so many hours of observation or shadowing achieved by the end of the semester or you can't move on to the next step. So, for the ideal situation, you would be able to attend every session with ease and get those hours done with a month to spare. Well, we are never this lucky, and we always get that frustrating last minute phone call... it's canceled.
5. When you're the only guy in the major.
While I personally have no experience with this, I am friends with the only guy in our class and I know it is hard on him to have to listen to all of our gossip and boy issues. But I know it has it's perks for him; being the only guy in the major means he's surrounded by type A girls who are over-organized, over prepared and study for hours on end. He may be surrounded by estrogen, but that just means he will be better prepared to handle his wife.
6. Being told to stop stressing but, never understanding how to do that.
CDI majors don't know the meaning of the word calm. We are all the most organized, on top of it, stressed out, anxiety driven people who are always striving for perfection. All of our education, art, business, etc. major friends try to tell us to stop stressing, it'll all work out, don't worry about it, just skip class. When we hear those things, it just makes us feel worse because we don't actually know how to do that. We all know the best way to cope: by drinking...a lot.
7. Constant updates from Canvas.
Grades are posted all at one point, and you rush to check on that exam you were worried about, that paper you wrote two weeks ago, the big group project you did most of the work for. If the grade that is posted is decent, then you aren't mad about it, and it didn't do much to your overall grade either way. You accept it and go ahead and take your daily nap. When you wake up, there are five notifications about grades being updated. You get excited, thinking maybe she gave you those five points back only to see that it went up by a measly half a point. Thanks for nothing, Canvas.
8. Attending NSSLHA meetings.
The National Student Speech, Language and Hearing Association. It's a mouthful, so we simplify it for our own benefit. We pay our dues, buy the shirts, put it on our graduate school applications and very unwillingly attend the meetings. We listen to them talk about all the great volunteer opportunities and think about how awesome that would look on our applications, or during an interview, and they tell you at the end of the meeting that sign-up sheets are by the door. That's when you start realizing all the extra time you would have to give up and while you really would like to volunteer, you simply avoid eye contact and run out the door and feel terrible for it later.
9. Constantly checking your email for grad school updates.
We are a part of one of the most competitive programs any school offers, which means that we aren't just competing for grad school spots with our own classmates but hundreds of other applicants. We pay the fees and take the tests, send our transcripts out and answer the personal essay questions that make us feel weird talking about ourselves. Then when all is said and done, we sit and wait and check our emails 20 or 30 times a day. Keeping our fingers crossed for a scrap of good news, even just a wait-list email would make us burst into tears.
10. Realizing everyone is just as clueless as you are.
All the stress, studying, worrying, test grades and balancing between an A and a B. We all sit on our own and wonder if we're the only one that is teetering between grades or studying our asses off just to pass a test. Then you finally decide to be honest with someone else and talk about grades. You discover that you aren't the only one, you aren't struggling by yourself, other people procrastinate just as much as you do and you aren't alone. The best moment is the awkward silence in class when a question is asked, and everyone is waiting for someone else to answer. That's when you finally realize everyone is just as clueless as you are, and you are all in this together.
Special shout out to CDI Class of 2017
