First Week - Finished!

It's Tuesday night and I am finished for classes for the week.  Yep, you read that right... I have one class on Mondays, three classes on Tuesday and then I am finished for the week.  Good thing though, is that almost all of my classes have a few outside of class components besides homework and studying for exams.

For my diagnostics class, we are being broken up into pairs and will be matched with a faculty member to perform a diagnostic in our university clinic.  We also have to set up an observation with a local SLP to observe (or participate in - if the SLP is comfortable with that) a speech and language evaluation of either a child or an adult.  For our aphasia class, we have to set up an observation of a treatment session (either individual or group) or attend a meeting of an aphasia support group.  Then for our audiometric disorders class, we are putting together a hearing conservation project, then going out into the community to a class (1st grade classroom or a middle school classroom, etc.) teach them about the anatomy and physiology of the ear, the loudness scale, hair cells damage, and hearing conservation.

There are also a lot more presentations this semester in comparison to last semester... I definitely need practice with public speaking so I am glad we will have many opportunities to do so.  My goal is to not use note cards at all since I tend to over-rely on them.  This semester I'm also going to set up some volunteer hours with the SLP at the Autism Collaborative Center on campus.  It's definitely going to be much busier this semester compared to last!

Overall I am really excited about this semester.  I love that we will go out into the community to observe and to teach.  Going off of first impressions of first days in classes, my favorite so far is diagnostics and aphasia as a close second!
     
Oh! Another cool thing about today - I met someone who also did the Utah State University online post bachelor's in communicative disorders and deaf education!  We overlapped by three semesters so we probably had a class or two together but didn't know each other then.  She's in two of my classes this semester and happened to mention that she attended USU online.  I've only "met" my former classmates online and not in person, so it was great to finally meet someone IRL.  Definitely made my day!

How long will I be in grad school?

Got a meeting with my advisor on Monday and should be getting all the the inside scoop on what exactly the Eastern Mich SLP grad program will entail.  The big question on my mind right now is whether I will be graduating in August 2014 like I thought or will it be December 2014 like some of my other classmates with an SLP bachelors.  From what I have seen, most programs across the country are 5 semesters.  Eastern is 5~8 semesters depending on whether you are coming in without a comm. dis. undergrad, you have a comm. dis. degree from Eastern or you do have an undergrad in SLP from another school, but you may be lacking in a few important classes.  Since clinic doesn’t start until the 3rd semester at Eastern and I didn’t take a fluency class nor a voice disorders class (like another classmate), it’s looking like I will be at Eastern for 7 semesters.  Will know for sure on Monday…