I'm thinking about a career change and I'd love to hear from others who have started something different. I'm considering speech pathology, so tacom and any others I'd like to hear thoughts you have too.
I'm a dietitian now. I work in the community doing a lot of wellness campaigns and while it's somewhat rewarding there isn't room for growth with my current employer. I never see job postings that look interesting and the pay is terrible. I've only had 1 small raise in the 8 years that I've been working. I'm effectively making less now than when I started.
There are better jobs available that require a masters and more management experience than I have, but even then they often don't pay very well or excite me much. Even the AND put out survey results showing that having a masters in nutrition didn't provide additional compensation.
I love my nutrition background, but I don't think it's work that I want to keep doing for 30 more years. There are 2 speech pathology graduate programs offered in my area. I think I would need 1 year of getting the prerecs and then it's a 2 year program.
I'm 31 and have no kids yet, but we are TTC.
I'm currently looking for a job that will pay tuition reimbursement and trying to work on it slowly part time. Or would you take out loans and go full time or something else?
I work in pharmaceutical research and we have a lot of folks who used to work as dietitians or related fields. If you are interested, PM me and I can send you more specifics. If you are in a major city, there are likely opportunities in your area. If you are willing to travel for work, the opportunities are quite lucrative after a couple of years in an entry position.
I'm an SLP right now in a public school (we have a snow day today). I'm only 24, so I did the full time grad program and finished it in two years. I would recommend to anyone to do the full time program and take out the loans for it. Grad school was definitely not easy, so I feel like I needed that time on weekends and in the evening to study and prepare for the national exam (the PRAXIS). You'll also have internships (depends on the program) to complete, so you might want to have the time in your schedule for that. My internships were M, W, and F from 8-5 like a normal job, and then I had classes on T and Th, so there was pretty much no way that I could work (besides on the weekends, I suppose).
I love my job right now. I'm currently completing my clinical fellowship year (which is required in order to be fully certified from the American Speech-Language Hearing Association). The clinical fellowship year is still a paid year, but I work under a supervisor.
You can also go more medical rather than school-based if you want. There are a lot of options, and that's my main reason to pick SLP as a profession because it's so versatile. You can work in schools, nursing homes, rehabilitation centers, hospitals, etc. It's a good career with a lot of flexibility.
Let me know if you have more questions. Also feel free to PM me.
this is so helpful justdance. I like the versatility of different workplaces as well. That's something I liked about dietetics and when I did my internship was when I first learned about SLP. We were constantly saying, "we're going to have Speech do a consult to see if she needs to be on full liquids". I was thinking, "wait, they get to do the cool part??"
Being a non trad student makes me nervous because I think I would much rather focus on one thing at a time. Maybe I could do my prerec courses while working and then take off 2 years to complete the program.
Building up a lot of debt scares me, but luckily we don't have any now, so I think we could do some loans and manage okay.
You could probably work while doing the pre-recs. I don't see why that wouldn't work. I would recommend that you go full-time for the grad program. I know it sucks building up student debt (trust me, I have A LOT to pay off), but I really think you should go full-time and get it done. You could probably still work part-time on the weekends or on some evenings, but you'll need to have time to do internships and study.
And yes, SLPs can do swallow studies. I always thought that was really cool, but unfortunately I didn't get a lot of training in that area. Plus I like working in the schools.
How were your undergrad grades? Have you taken the GRE?
I could be wrong, but I think it's extremely competitive process for getting into the SLP grad programs (at least it was 10 years ago when I knew of some friends looking into programs...)
I could be wrong, but I think mrshandy also works in a field related to SLP.
Do you like the health field? Have you also looked into Physician Assistant programs? I have a friend that worked as an RD in a hospital, and she wasn't crazy about it. She loves being a PA, and makes great money (for a very LCOL area). When she graduated from the PA program, her RD/nutrition background made her attractive to employers.
Post by phunluvin82 on Jan 29, 2013 10:54:45 GMT -5
I am not a SLP, but my college roommate and a family member of mine are...and I worked in Special Ed for several years.
Honestly, I wish I would have done SLP when I was going to school. All of the SLP's I worked with in different schools seemed to have it made. They had lots of students, but always in small groups or one-on-one. They complained about the amount of paperwork...but, as a Spec Ed teacher, I had lots of paperwork too but wasn't making nearly the same salary as they were! Overall, they all really liked their jobs, and being a specialist like that seemed much lower stress to me than classroom teaching, but with higher pay.
I think it is a great field with good salaries and lots of opportunity/versatility. I would just caution that you really map out what it would take to get you there. I seriously considered going back to school for it at one point...but when I looked at everything involved, I would have had to *almost* start over. My undergrad was in Psych, so it may very well be different for you, but I was looking at over 2 years just to get the prereqs done because the requirements were so much different that what I had taken in undergrad.
How were your undergrad grades? Have you taken the GRE?
I could be wrong, but I think it's extremely competitive process for getting into the SLP grad programs (at least it was 10 years ago when I knew of some friends looking into programs...)
I could be wrong, but I think mrshandy also works in a field related to SLP.
Do you like the health field? Have you also looked into Physician Assistant programs? I have a friend that worked as an RD in a hospital, and she wasn't crazy about it. She loves being a PA, and makes great money (for a very LCOL area). When she graduated from the PA program, her RD/nutrition background made her attractive to employers.
My undergrad grades were pretty good. I think a 3.6 gpa. I got a C once in Marketing.
I haven't taken the GRE yet. I'm working on mapping out what all I need to get done now.
I do like the health field, but I didn't like being an RD in the hospital. DH can never believe it because every time we've had to go to visit someone in a hospital or nursing home he says that I'm in my element. I think I would like it doing something like Speech. Or I could work in a non-clinical setting.
No offense to hospital RDs, but I just didn't feel that I was contributing much. A lot of that was because there's too much that's out of our control. The wrong food gets sent up, the patient and family aren't cooperative, the MDs don't read/implement our recommendations. I felt like I was spending the day doing word problems for no reason.
I am not a SLP, but my college roommate and a family member of mine are...and I worked in Special Ed for several years.
Honestly, I wish I would have done SLP when I was going to school. All of the SLP's I worked with in different schools seemed to have it made. They had lots of students, but always in small groups or one-on-one. They complained about the amount of paperwork...but, as a Spec Ed teacher, I had lots of paperwork too but wasn't making nearly the same salary as they were! Overall, they all really liked their jobs, and being a specialist like that seemed much lower stress to me than classroom teaching, but with higher pay.
I think it is a great field with good salaries and lots of opportunity/versatility. I would just caution that you really map out what it would take to get you there. I seriously considered going back to school for it at one point...but when I looked at everything involved, I would have had to *almost* start over. My undergrad was in Psych, so it may very well be different for you, but I was looking at over 2 years just to get the prereqs done because the requirements were so much different that what I had taken in undergrad.
GL!
I agree with you it does seem like they have it made. I think a lot of it is similar to dietetics, but more specialist and much higher salary.
I will be working on mapping out what I would have to accomplish to do it. It looks like I will have to take several speech prerecs, but I already have the other science and math courses listed. Even if I had to retake them, at least I think I would have a solid foundation. At a glance it looks like a year, maybe a year and a summer to get those done if I went at it full time. It's depressing to think of how long it would take to do it 1 or 2 classes at a time.
Don't forget that with any career change you will be starting at the bottom. I don't know what RDs make in a year, but as an SLP, I don't really feel like I have that high of a salary. At least not compared to the amount of student loans I have or listening to other people's monthly take-home pay on here.
I am not a SLP, but my college roommate and a family member of mine are...and I worked in Special Ed for several years.
Honestly, I wish I would have done SLP when I was going to school. All of the SLP's I worked with in different schools seemed to have it made. They had lots of students, but always in small groups or one-on-one. They complained about the amount of paperwork...but, as a Spec Ed teacher, I had lots of paperwork too but wasn't making nearly the same salary as they were! Overall, they all really liked their jobs, and being a specialist like that seemed much lower stress to me than classroom teaching, but with higher pay.
I think it is a great field with good salaries and lots of opportunity/versatility. I would just caution that you really map out what it would take to get you there. I seriously considered going back to school for it at one point...but when I looked at everything involved, I would have had to *almost* start over. My undergrad was in Psych, so it may very well be different for you, but I was looking at over 2 years just to get the prereqs done because the requirements were so much different that what I had taken in undergrad.
GL!
I agree with you it does seem like they have it made. I think a lot of it is similar to dietetics, but more specialist and much higher salary.
I will be working on mapping out what I would have to accomplish to do it. It looks like I will have to take several speech prerecs, but I already have the other science and math courses listed. Even if I had to retake them, at least I think I would have a solid foundation. At a glance it looks like a year, maybe a year and a summer to get those done if I went at it full time. It's depressing to think of how long it would take to do it 1 or 2 classes at a time.
Yeah that makes sense. As a Psych major, my classes were very social science heavy...I only ever had like 2 math classes and one 'real' science class in college so I would have had to backtrack much more.
Don't forget that with any career change you will be starting at the bottom. I don't know what RDs make in a year, but as an SLP, I don't really feel like I have that high of a salary. At least not compared to the amount of student loans I have or listening to other people's monthly take-home pay on here.
Oh, I never feel like I make any money compared to what I hear from people on here! I know I won't be starting on top or anything, but I'm stagnant now at entry level salary even though I have 8 years of solid experience. I'm not getting anywhere fast and with SLP being a masters it will be quite a bump up.
I know someone who's sister is a SLP and her first job is $66k. I'm in a lower COL area than she is, but I'm trying to bring in low 30 something now. So any jump up would be huge for me. I will be conscious of not going crazy with SLs though.
Don't forget that with any career change you will be starting at the bottom. I don't know what RDs make in a year, but as an SLP, I don't really feel like I have that high of a salary. At least not compared to the amount of student loans I have or listening to other people's monthly take-home pay on here.
Oh, I never feel like I make any money compared to what I hear from people on here! I know I won't be starting on top or anything, but I'm stagnant now at entry level salary even though I have 8 years of solid experience. I'm not getting anywhere fast and with SLP being a masters it will be quite a bump up.
I know someone who's sister is a SLP and her first job is $66k. I'm in a lower COL area than she is, but I'm trying to bring in low 30 something now. So any jump up would be huge for me. I will be conscious of not going crazy with SLs though.
Her first job is $66K?! Oh man, I would kill for that. I'm sure she's more medically based than school based though. SLPs in the schools definitely make less than SLPs in the medical fields.
I'm an SLP. I don't have a ton of time to post right now, but I'd be happy to answer questions if you want to PM me.
Just a quick run down- I went to grad school a year after my undergraduate was over. I got my bachelors in Linguistics and still had to basically start from scratch when I started my Speech program. It took 1 year of undergrad prereqs and then 2.5 years of grad school (the 2.5 was because my program had over-accepted students at the time and did not have enough internships for everyone).
It's a wonderful field. Right now I'm SAH with my son, but before that I worked in a preschool for children with special needs. It was an amazing place to work. I primarily worked with autistic students. The pay in my district was the same as the teachers, but with a 3% bump for having a masters degree (plus at the highest starting point on the salary schedule because of all the units I had from my masters).
It's a very flexible field. I enjoyed working with adults about as much as I enjoyed preschool, but the schedule of working for a public school can't be beat. I will probably go back to that when I go back to work.
In my program, we had many many people who were there to make a career change. Many older than 30s. It's not uncommon.
Again, feel free to PM me if you have any other questions.
yes, justdance she's clinical. I'm not expecting that, not in my COL area, but it does look like there's more potential than continuing what I'm doing or even a masters in my own field.
How were your undergrad grades? Have you taken the GRE?
I could be wrong, but I think it's extremely competitive process for getting into the SLP grad programs (at least it was 10 years ago when I knew of some friends looking into programs...)
I could be wrong, but I think mrshandy also works in a field related to SLP.
Do you like the health field? Have you also looked into Physician Assistant programs? I have a friend that worked as an RD in a hospital, and she wasn't crazy about it. She loves being a PA, and makes great money (for a very LCOL area). When she graduated from the PA program, her RD/nutrition background made her attractive to employers.
My undergrad grades were pretty good. I think a 3.6 gpa. I got a C once in Marketing.
I haven't taken the GRE yet. I'm working on mapping out what all I need to get done now.
I do like the health field, but I didn't like being an RD in the hospital. DH can never believe it because every time we've had to go to visit someone in a hospital or nursing home he says that I'm in my element. I think I would like it doing something like Speech. Or I could work in a non-clinical setting.
No offense to hospital RDs, but I just didn't feel that I was contributing much. A lot of that was because there's too much that's out of our control. The wrong food gets sent up, the patient and family aren't cooperative, the MDs don't read/implement our recommendations. I felt like I was spending the day doing word problems for no reason.
This was exactly how BFF felt. Now she's working in a pediatrics office, and LOVES it. She basically has certain well-checks she does (like, she's assigned to most 6-month well checks and 2-year well-checks, or something like that...) and also sick visits. She gets a good mix of healthy kids and kids with issues/illness. She now has more respect from the MDs (whereas before, she felt like they never listened to the RD...) and really has an impact with the kids.
Anyway, might be a field worth looking into, depending on how PA's are treated in your state (liscensing for different states differs).
She makes around $70-80K (I think?), LCOL. In a hospital, she could have made in the $80s-90s.
i'm also an SLP. I agree that its a great field! I love the flexibility of it- so many different settings you can work in, different types of clients.... Its also nice if you are planning to have kids because there are a lot of settings where you can work part time and make as much as a lot of people make working full time. (I live in NJ, and Early intervention pay $75-100 an hour!) so if you don't want to work full time when your kids are young, thre are a lot of great options. I do agree though that the schooling is a commitment. I went right from undergrad to 2 years of grad school, so i was still living at home and didn't have a house or family of my own yet. It made it a lot easier. people in my grad classes did work during grad school, but its very difficult. especially when you get into your second year and you have to do your internship requirements. Those are all unpaid, and all during working hours... so it makes it hard to have a paying job. Just something to think about! Honestly though, if you can work it out i don't think you'll regret it- its a great, rewarding field!
thanks for all the encouraging responses and also giving me other things to think about. I'm sure it's silly, but I kept feeling like I was too old to make a change and since I don't hate my career I was just resigning myself to sticking with it. I'm feeling so excited for the first time in years that I have options!
Post by lostmonkeyatikea on Jan 29, 2013 17:23:27 GMT -5
I'm an SLP too.
I think most grad programs are very, very competitive (at least here in CA). When I was in grad school, we had over 150 applicants for 20 openings. I think it has gotten a little worse since then with all the budget cuts. I am not sure what it is like in other states, but plan on trying to get as high of GPA as possible in your pre-req courses and as much experience as possible beforehand.
I was able to work a part time job my first year of graduate school - I worked ten hours a week and the rest of my time was devoted to studying. My second year I couldn't work due to internships and my academic load.
I went to a state school in CA and took out about $15k in loans, total. I lived at home and worked my tail off to pay my car off before I started, so I had very little to worry about when it came to living expenses. The nice part about being an SLP is that I barely paid any of that back - all of my loans were forgiven since I am a special educator, working in a Title 1 school in an area of shortage. That's something to look into - many states and the federal government have loan forgiveness programs for SLPs working in public schools.
I love my job and my sister is actually pursuing a career change to be an SLP as well. She's taken some online classes and has just completed her pre-reqs. PM me if you would like more information on that.
Another route you could take is to become a SLP assistant first. It's a growing part of the field and here in CA, the pay is pretty good as are the benefits.
I'm in a very HCOL area, and make about $80k in the schools. I also do Early Intervention on the side and make anywhere from $150-500 extra a month, depending on how many kids I am seeing. I began my career in the hospital, where I made less than I do now but was working more and paying for part of my health insurance! I got burned out fast there and switched to the schools. You cannot beat the benefits in the schools - it's probably why every district is broke! The vacation is pretty nice too.
I will say, if you are TTC you will have to consider the demands of grad school. I am 11 wks pregnant and cannot even fathom being pregnant while in grad school. Both things are soooo stressful! I had a friend who had a baby while we were in school - she had the baby over Spring break and was back in class the following week. She nearly had a breakdown so that is not something I would recommend.
I love my profession and am so happy. I always encourage the college students that I know to consider this field, it really is wonderful. I wish you the best!
I also do Early Intervention on the side and make anywhere from $150-500 extra a month, depending on how many kids I am seeing.
Do you mind if I PM you? I'm also in CA and have been thinking about getting into Early Intervention part-time. I'd love to pick your brain about it if it's okay with you.
Edited because I meant to condense the quote to the relevant part.
thanks for sharing all of that. I see what you mean about competitive. I have a lot to marinate on, but will be planning to PM a few of you. I don't know where I'm going to fit in a baby into this, but we've put it off for a while and really can't wait longer, so if something had to give it would be school. I wouldn't want to put myself in the position that your classmate was in, that does sound terribly stressful.
First off, I'm so excited to get tagged for this! Wahoo! I love SLP and am happy to talk about it. That said, I just walked in the door from a 11 hour day (12.5 with commute) from inpatient rehab so I'm exhausted. So forgive me if I jump around. Also, I only skimmed the responses above.
Like anything else, pay will vary based on the location but we tend to be a pretty well-paid bunch. PPs are correct that school SLPs are generally paid less than med SLPs, but even the clinical fellows at public schools here in Chicago (CFs are paid less than licensed SLPs) start at $55k.
grad school is a HUGE commitment. I *loved* undergrad, excelled academically, and genuinely enjoy learning. I'm still getting my ass kicked. there's absolutely no way I could handle a young baby and my current work load. some days I struggle with taking care of my own basic needs. with that said, we do have one student in my program who has a 3.5 YO - but she has plenty of help from family and her kid will often (~2x week) do overnights with the grandparents so mom can study until 3am. It does make it harder on her though.
prereqs are typically "easy" so you should be able to handle working while taking them. as for working while in school, it totally depends on your program. mine made it clear that students do not work while enrolled.
getting into grad school for SLP is really competitive now. I had a 3.96, GRE scores in the 90th+ percentiles, 3 years of experience as an asst preschool teacher, 1 summer as an SLPA, and 1 summer working in a non-traditional setting with SLPs and I was still nervous about getting in. looking back, I could have relaxed a bit but my school had less than a 10% acceptance rate. and I didn't have a backup plan.
I ultimately chose SLP because so many of the professionals I spoke to had such high career satisfaction. I love the flexibility afforded to me, enjoy working with the patient populations we serve, and I love the challenge of always having something new thrown at me. just today I did a VFSS swallow exam in an acute care hospital, bedside swallow exam in inpatient rehab, motor speech diagnostics, cognitive therapy, feeding therapy, and a little bit of voice therapy! It's insane and I absolutely love it.
so far my passion is in swallowing. fluoro studies are unreal, and I LOVE feeling like I'm able to impact someone's quality of life so significantly.
I love that as SLPs we are the experts for issues in speech, lang, and swallowing. it's our job to diagnose the problem, develop a plan for care, and carry out that plan. the autonomy is great!
if you have any specific questions or want to talk schools feel free to PM me or flag me down again.
thanks for sharing all of that. I see what you mean about competitive. I have a lot to marinate on, but will be planning to PM a few of you. I don't know where I'm going to fit in a baby into this, but we've put it off for a while and really can't wait longer, so if something had to give it would be school. I wouldn't want to put myself in the position that your classmate was in, that does sound terribly stressful.
Congratulations to you by the way!
just saw this follow up.
I understand wanting a family now. I think if you really want to make SLP work I would TTC now and slowly take prereqs (and get in some observation hours with a local SLP) while you're still working. this will give you a chance to really make sure you enjoy the field without making too large of a commitment. once your child was a little older and more independent (3ish) you could throw yourself into grad school FT.
also you are never too old. I'd estimate that 1/3 of the students at program are working on their 2nd or 3rd careers - some of them have graduate degrees in completely different fields.
How were your undergrad grades? Have you taken the GRE?
I could be wrong, but I think it's extremely competitive process for getting into the SLP grad programs (at least it was 10 years ago when I knew of some friends looking into programs...)
I could be wrong, but I think mrshandy also works in a field related to SLP.
Do you like the health field? Have you also looked into Physician Assistant programs? I have a friend that worked as an RD in a hospital, and she wasn't crazy about it. She loves being a PA, and makes great money (for a very LCOL area). When she graduated from the PA program, her RD/nutrition background made her attractive to employers.
i accidentally tagged mrshandy. ignore that reference. i was thinking of a different nestie, but I'm not sure that she's on this board. so, nevermind!