When I first began college, I had absolutely no interest in going to graduate school. My thought process was, "I've already been in school my entire life, why on Earth would I want to add an additional 2 years on to that?" I wanted to get in and out in four years and be done. Well, as we all know very well, plans change. I went into college wanting to become a doctor originally, but I quickly changed my mind about that (see above: "in and out in four years"). I never identified fully with wanting to become a doctor, and I it felt more like, "I need something to say when people ask me what I want to be." It was also a huge financial burden and time commitment that wasn't something to haphazardly jump into. It wasn't long before I changed my major. Enter: my first cultural anthropology class.
I thought anthropology was the coolest subject in the world. What's not to love about studying different people and cultures. I had always considered myself an open-minded person, and I thought, "I could totally do this." And besides, you always hear about how people just suddenly KNOW what they want to be after being in college for awhile. They take that magical class, and the sky opens up and the sun rays shine down with a hallelujah chorus, and they know their future. I thought that this was that moment for me. Little did I know, I was wrong.
Fast forward two years to the summer in between my sophomore and junior years. I really loved anthropology, and I thought it was a cool thing to study, but I didn't feel as though it was what I wanted to commit my whole life to. Granted, I had always had an internal conflict with my decision to even change my major to Anthropology, and there was always my mom, the nurse, there to say, "What are you going to do with that?" She had always preached the "Job Security" sermon, which I realize is important. I began to feel like I needed to really dig deep and find out what makes me happy, and I started realizing that becoming an Anthropologist wasn't that.
Meanwhile, I was working my second summer with a group of at-risk youth with behavior issues. I've always loved being around kids, and I looked up to my therapist coworkers. I began to consider becoming a therapist because I really loved these kids, and seeing them make improvements and making a difference in their lives (even if I was just the summer help at the time) was so special to me.
So...I dug deeper, I thought about my future constantly and what I could do for the rest of my life. As I've mentioned, I have commitment issues. Add in the fact that I was spending thousands of dollars a semester, and I STILL didn't know what I wanted to be, and I was running out of time. I started asking people who know me, "what can you see me doing?" and "what should I be when I grow up?" It's almost as if I wanted someone to decide for me because this was a HUGE decision.
I continued researching different career paths: social worker/therapist, businesswoman, teacher, you name it. I came across the College of Education and Health Professions website for my university, and saw a Communication Disorders degree. Now that sounded interesting. I began researching more into it. I had heard of Speech Therapists, but it wasn't something I had ever considered for myself; however, the more I read about it, the more intrigued I became with the profession. BUT, it required a Masters degree (grad school, blech!), and that did not fit into my "plan."
I've always very much been a planner. I dislike making last minute decisions, and if I wanted to pursue a degree in Communication Disorders and later Speech-Language Pathology, I would have had to decide like, NOW, if I still wanted to graduate with my Bachelors within the 4 year time frame. I emailed the adviser for Communication Disorders and set up a meeting with him. At the very least, I wanted to learn more about the profession. Well, by the time I left his office, I had a new major and a new lease on life. I had made a semi-spontaneous decision, and it felt GOOD.
August rolled around and I anticipated starting my new classes. I was excited to see what was in store. I told myself that if I didn't like it, I could always just change my major AGAIN and stay in school a little bit longer. Needless to say, I fell in love with the subject and everything it had to offer. I FINALLY got my TAH-DAH moment when I was in my phonetics class. I was fascinated by all of the new things I was learning in all of my classes, and wanted to learn as much as possible in the two years I had left. Studying no longer seemed like a chore because I WANTED to know this information.
I know that many people have the presumption that speech-language pathologists(SLPs) sit with 4 year olds coming in and out of their office all day correcting their substitution of the "w" sound for the "r" sound. I even sort of thought that was what they did too until I got into my classes. In reality, there is so much more that SLPs do. Swallowing disorders, fluency disorders, articulation disorders, language disorders, etc. The list goes on. I'll admit that when I went into the program, I didn't even know there was a difference between speech and language. But boy do I know now!
I am so happy to have found the thing that I am passionate about in life, and to pursue it wholeheartedly.
If you made it to the end of this post, thank you for reading!
Love,
Haley
