Should I consider a career in Speech Language Pathology?

Hi. I'm currently a doctorate student in Audiology, which is along the same sort of education track as SLPs (we share a building, shared all our undergrad classes, work together frequently, etc.) I considered going the SLP route before deciding to do audiology. I'm surprised you read that being an SLP is stressful. Most SLPs I know wouldn't really categorize their jobs as stressful so much as challenging and trying at times, because of course if you are working with kids with speech disorders the progress can be slower than you'd like and the suffering of the kids can be real. Most SLPs I know (I say most, but really all) love their jobs. It's rewarding, interesting, challenging and you really get to change individual lives in a profound way. I've honestly never met an SLP who wished they'd done something else. In a school setting, you don't typically work longer hours than teachers (who do work long hours), but you probably aren't working 60 hours a week either. The hours you do put in though are pretty intense. I mean, you are on. You don't get to take 10 minutes out of the hour every hour to swerve over to MeFi and take a little mental vacation. However, most SLPs I know would say that they have great work/life balance. Your work is in the moment with the kids, so you don't necessarily have a lot of work to take home (though certain times of the year with reports, or if you're doing presentations or working on a study, etc. But mostly). SLPs in schools often meet with groups of kids these days, but not always. Some school SLPs have one school they work at, some travel around to the whole district. A lot of this depends on the school system, funding, etc. I imagine in Pittsburgh, most schools have a dedicated SLP. You can also work with kids in a non-school setting, which might be more to your liking. A little less of the school madness, huge meetings with all staff, etc. A lot of SLPs work with kids work in a private clinic. The kids and cases you treat in a private clinic may differ a bit from a public school, in good ways and bad. The only thing I would make sure to look at is that you've done all the undergraduate pre-reqs. You are unlikely to be admitted to a grad program unless you have most or all of the undergrad Speech and Hearing classes complete - A&P of Speech, Speech Disorders, Language Disorders, Neurology for Speech, Audiology (at least an intro class), Organic Disorders, Phonetics, Speech and Language Development. Most competitive programs also require you to have your requisite 25 observation hours of an SLP completed before you begin the program (ASHA requirement). You probably did your basic science in your BS, but most programs also want you to have your ASHA science requirements complete before you begin (math or stats outside of a Speech Dept., At least one course in physical, biological and social science. You're probably done with that but just make sure). Getting in to grad programs is competitive. I don't mean to scare you off; having a BS and a masters in linguistics and being an older student with life experience will all work in your favor. But it is competitive. I'm currently at the #1 ranked SLP school in the country (by US News and World Report) and it was cutthroat getting in. Which is to say - if you decide to go this route (and truly, I think you should), you may need to broaden your horizons beyond one school. If you are interested in seeing SLPs at work from the comfort of your couch, I highly recommend http://masterclinician.org/. $25, but you get access to a ton of incredible SLP sessions. There are some SLPs here on MeFi, so hopefully they'll chime in too. But seriously, I think you should go for it. SLP is always ranked among the most satisfying and best jobs, with a great outlook, decent pay, and less than 1% unemployment (i.e. if you want a job you will have one). Good luck, don't hesitate to memail me if I can answer any other questions for you.

I cannot recall if anyone I know in my grad program received any funding or not, though I think as the years go buy it likely is less and less common. I believe most of my colleagues took out loans. I took out loans (that I'm still paying back) but I also was able to work 10-20 hours per week at a part time job on campus. It was a fairly easy job though, and at times I was able to fit in some course-related reading during my down-time. That being said, I believe most of my colleagues worked at least 10 hours per week in addition to full-time classes - and it was a fairly intensive grad program. In the second year it wasn't quite as easy to fit work hours in simply because I had a lot of off-site practicums, but it's still doable. Good luck! Even though I don't work in the schools or with kids, I really enjoy being an SLP. Every day is interesting, it's never boring, and I can see myself working for a very long time (and have the option to change my setting if I ever get bored with hospitals).

Thanks for the update, DingoMutt. I was just thinking about this the other day and hoping it was going well for you, but then completely forgot to check back in. Best of luck exploring this path!

Feel free to memail me for more info. I'm an SLP who works in Early Intervention. I did a rotation in the public schools as part of grad school. I enjoyed it, but it is very intense. You are "on" non-stop, with constant clients. The nature of the work is that you have very structured interactions, and you are always planning out several steps ahead ("If Student does X, then I need to respond with Y. If they do A, then maybe B or C"). I wouldn't say it was "stressful" but it was challenging and sometimes draining. I have some friends/classmates who are doing really well in the schools, but I decided it wasn't for me. I love working in Early Intervention (birth to 3) because it's not as structured. It's more child-led, and I spend a lot of my time talking with parents. It's not a "clinical" approach (which is what those structured interations are), but naturalistic and child-driven. I really love it. I see about 4-6 clients a day, depending on where they live (I do home visits). I see a huge range of families and kids, and although many of my families have similiar goals, the approach can be different for each kid. And the employment outlook is fantastic! They were 42 people in my graduating class, and three months after graduating,all but one had a job as an SLP (and that one was being super picky about where she worked).

One point - My sister is a SLP. I really don't know anyone else that likes his or her job more than she does. Another point - our neighborhood bar is owned by a former SLP (she's ~30) so there's some burnout possible.

My mom is about to retire and has worked as an SLP in schools or early intervention for ~20 years. She loves working with the kids, planning the activities and doing evaluations. Most of the complaints she has are about the administration and sometimes her workload. I think at one time she was treating 50 kids, some of whom had to be seen more than once per week! That was few years ago and she has moved more into evaluations of the Birth-3 age group. She has a few friends in the same field and most of their stress and job frustration comes from the administration, too.

I am an SLP, but I work in a hospital setting (working with adults only) so I can't comment on working in a school setting. I can comment on the prereqs and education needed, though. Just want to echo what Lutoslawski mentioned, make sure you have enough prereqs to get into a grad program. I had a Bachelor's in Science (Biology) and went back to school and went through a post-bac program specifically tailored to students interested in SLP who already had a Bachelor's degree but not the necessary requirements. It was a year long program and, though I didn't really need an extra degree, it was really nice to have all the classes laid out for me and I was also provided with ample opportunity to get all my volunteer/observation hours and get to know the faculty . . . which I'm sure helped get into grad school. Admissions to grad school seemed highly competitive when I went, and this was almost 10 years ago. So, long story short, if you need more prereqs, I highly recommend looking for a post-bac program.

Thanks for the info so far, everyone - this has been hugely helpful for me. Canda and Lutoslawski, I was a little surprised at your comments about needing a post-bac program or otherwise fulfilling the pre-reqs before applying to grad school; my (admittedly not fully-informed!) impression was that many programs let you in without those prereqs and that you could take them as part of your course of study, although of course that would add to the amount of time you were in the program. Is that not the case, or is it more that in practice, most programs don't take folks without those prereqs completed even if they technically could?

It depents on the program, DingoMutt, but there are so many prerequsites (not just biology and statistics, but specific courses like Anatomy of Speech, Child Language Development, and Hearing Science) that it would be difficult to do while in the master's program. I know that some schools (like U of Minnesota) have two tracks, one of which includes an extra year of these prerequisites. But most programs require that you have these classes filled (or on the way to being filled) before you even apply.