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- Dec 9, 2005
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Hello everyone,
I just wanted to write a brief message to any student considering an alternative to clinical psych. If you know its what you want to do and its workin for ya, great. But if you find that the admission criteria is daunting and you don't want to spend another 6 years in school, I offer a humble suggestion. I was SURE I wanted my PhD clinical psych throughout undergrad and did all the necessary prepartions. I had research experience, good grades, a publication, participated in conferences. I found however that I was very unhappy, and stressed. I felt like the students were hyper-competitive and we didn't celebrate each others success, we just eyed each other with jealousy. All my life I have just wanted to work with children and it seemed like in my psych major, "clinical aspirations" were viewed with much less respect than research ones. Professors continued to urge me to spend less time with my volunteer work and more with my research. It just wasn't me, and it took almost 3 years to figure that out.
The field I finally found to match my passions and aptitudes was Speech language pathology. I would reccomend this field to anyone who has a passion for one on one clinical work, and interest in psychology. I find the overlap with psychology to be immense and my former training in psych to be very applicable. All kinds of psychological disorders involve lang. as many of you probably know including aphasia, parkinsons, autism, brain injury, and other motor disorders such as cerabal paulsy. You do assessment diagnosis and therapy, and can have a private practice. The pay is actually comprable to a psychologists (in certain sectors of speech path) and only requires a masters. The jobs are plentiful and varied, you can work in schools, hospitals, early intervention (my fave), and long term care facilities. I find the speech pathology field to be much more organized, if you want to do speech therapy the qualifications are very clear unlike in psych were you have all kinds of therapists, psychologists, counselors and social workers doing similar work. The admissions criteria for speech pathology graduate programs is MUCH more manageable. Average GRE scores are around 1000 for verbal and quantitative, though they will be higher at the most selective programs. You are not pressured to do research if it is not your interest. If you want to see grad admissions data, check out www.asha.org/gradguide. You'll see that most schools admit at least 30 percent and many are well over 50%. The only downside I can think of is that there are many specific required courses, so now I have to go back and make them up and add extra time onto my bachelors, but I think its worth it.
In closing, I don't mean to dissuage anyone who is really into clinical psych or is already in grad school for clinical psych. Way to go for you guys cause I know how hard it is to get there! I just wanted to tell people about how closely speech path relates to psychology for anyone who feels lost within psychology. I LOVE speech pathology and feel so much more relaxed now. I probably sound like an advertisement for speech pathology but I don't care cause i believe in the field and am proud to be a part of it. I really wish someone had told me about the field earlier so I didn't have to waste all that stress on clinical psychology. Good luck
I just wanted to write a brief message to any student considering an alternative to clinical psych. If you know its what you want to do and its workin for ya, great. But if you find that the admission criteria is daunting and you don't want to spend another 6 years in school, I offer a humble suggestion. I was SURE I wanted my PhD clinical psych throughout undergrad and did all the necessary prepartions. I had research experience, good grades, a publication, participated in conferences. I found however that I was very unhappy, and stressed. I felt like the students were hyper-competitive and we didn't celebrate each others success, we just eyed each other with jealousy. All my life I have just wanted to work with children and it seemed like in my psych major, "clinical aspirations" were viewed with much less respect than research ones. Professors continued to urge me to spend less time with my volunteer work and more with my research. It just wasn't me, and it took almost 3 years to figure that out.
The field I finally found to match my passions and aptitudes was Speech language pathology. I would reccomend this field to anyone who has a passion for one on one clinical work, and interest in psychology. I find the overlap with psychology to be immense and my former training in psych to be very applicable. All kinds of psychological disorders involve lang. as many of you probably know including aphasia, parkinsons, autism, brain injury, and other motor disorders such as cerabal paulsy. You do assessment diagnosis and therapy, and can have a private practice. The pay is actually comprable to a psychologists (in certain sectors of speech path) and only requires a masters. The jobs are plentiful and varied, you can work in schools, hospitals, early intervention (my fave), and long term care facilities. I find the speech pathology field to be much more organized, if you want to do speech therapy the qualifications are very clear unlike in psych were you have all kinds of therapists, psychologists, counselors and social workers doing similar work. The admissions criteria for speech pathology graduate programs is MUCH more manageable. Average GRE scores are around 1000 for verbal and quantitative, though they will be higher at the most selective programs. You are not pressured to do research if it is not your interest. If you want to see grad admissions data, check out www.asha.org/gradguide. You'll see that most schools admit at least 30 percent and many are well over 50%. The only downside I can think of is that there are many specific required courses, so now I have to go back and make them up and add extra time onto my bachelors, but I think its worth it.
In closing, I don't mean to dissuage anyone who is really into clinical psych or is already in grad school for clinical psych. Way to go for you guys cause I know how hard it is to get there! I just wanted to tell people about how closely speech path relates to psychology for anyone who feels lost within psychology. I LOVE speech pathology and feel so much more relaxed now. I probably sound like an advertisement for speech pathology but I don't care cause i believe in the field and am proud to be a part of it. I really wish someone had told me about the field earlier so I didn't have to waste all that stress on clinical psychology. Good luck