Being an SLPA Changed My Trajectory

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.” – Albert Einstein The quote above resonates with my experience as a speech-language pathology graduate student and as a speech-language pathology assistant (SLPA). After graduating with my bachelor’s degree in communication sciences and disorders (CSD), I felt out of touch with my initial passion for speech-language pathology. I grew academically and became knowledgeable in so many…

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Opening Doors I Never Thought Were Possible Through the McNair Scholars Program

“Whether or not you reach your goals in life depends entirely on how well you prepare for them and how badly you want them.” — Ronald Erwin McNair Oftentimes, students wonder what they can do to make themselves stand out. There seems to be an invisible checklist that consists of an impressive academic status, leadership experience, and community service interactions—but where’s research? Although tons of…

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Why Student Leadership is Important for Growth

I’m sure you’ve heard a million times that you need some sort of student leadership on your resume in order to get into grad school, become an audiologist or SLP, etc. But what does that even look like? For me, being involved in student leadership wasn’t something that I sought out initially. Sure, I volunteered quite a bit at my local animal shelter because I…

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5 Tips for Submitting an ASHA Convention Proposal

I first got involved in research during my undergraduate program at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences department. I worked closely with Dr. Christine Brennan, PhD, CCC-SLP, in the Brain and Behavior Lab working on the benefits of large, medium, and small grain instruction for English-speaking adults learning to read Hangul. The excitement and passion she exuded during her classes made…

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