Table of Contents
Interest for a Health/Rehabilitation Career
Many people going into college do not know what the want to study. Many students change their majors several times during their college career. That was not the case for me. I have always known that I wanted to pursue a degree in health care, but never exactly knew what pathway I would choose. The exact moment I realized I wanted to be a speech language pathologist was when I was in high school. In high school my childhood best friend had been involved in a car accident The result of the accident caused him to have a traumatic brain injury.
Seeing him lying on the hospital bed being unable to speak and move impacted me drastically. Over time, he began working with specialists (speech therapist included) that began to help him recover. When I saw him being unable to speak was when I realized that there are many people out there that have had an injury or have a cognitive defect that does not allow them to speak. Communication is a crucial and complex aspect of our every day lives. The act of being able to communicate allows us to express our ideas and emotions. Being able to help these people communicate would be a huge accomplishment not only for my future patients but also for me. Communication is not given easily, I would be there step by step and help them achieve certain goals which would be a fulfillment that would follow me throughout my work as a speech pathologist.
Career Aptitude Test
In high school I had taken many career aptitude tests. The last one I took after senior year gave me the result that I would be ideal for speech pathology. At first I thought that the test was just giving me random options, but as I recently did the career aptitude test I realized that I may be ideal for this career. One of the main career interest is rehabilitation (66.7%). The results of my test only reinforced in me that fact that I want to pursue a career in speech language pathology. I believe that there is something so wonderful and indescribable of helping a person recover and seeing their journey through it all.
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Background/Foundation
When I am asked what I want I am pursuing a career plan people are always confused as to what Speech pathology is. To clear this confusion you would have to figure out what does a speech pathologist do and what exactly are they. A speech pathologist/therapist is a professional who evaluates and treats people who have swallowing and communication difficulties (Moreno, 2016). Speech Pathology is in the health care branch that deals with rehabilitating people with speech barriers. Rehabilitation is a major that needs people who will be there one on one with their patients. The results and the percentage stated on my aptitude test states that rehabilitation would be one of the main career interest.
Another main aspect apart from people who do not know about this career is: where can speech pathologists work? The scope of practice in the Speech Pathology field has grown tremendously. Speech Pathologists have had to continue expanding their knowledge to treat the expanding population of people with swallowing and communication disorders (Coordinating committee, 2009). Even though the population of people in need has continued to grow there are many factors that affect the scope of practice. The work setting in which I want to work in is related to health care setting. In the health care setting speech pathologists are required to respond to the growing population and attend their needs results in their being high demand and low reimbursement which then creates a tension that forces the speech pathologist to do more with less (Coordinating Committee, 2009).
Career Development Plan
My primary career interest is rehabilitation sciences, specifically Speech Pathology. I am interested in helping others rehabilitate from injury or illness. My primary career interest is working with TBI patients at hospitals. To actually get to becoming a speech language pathologist there needs to be a set of goals to help me get to my objective. My long term professional goals can be divided in both ways: academically and professionally. Academically, I plan to graduate from the bachelor’s of speech language pathology, gain my master’s in Speech Pathology, and maybe even get my Ph.D.
Professionally, my long term goal is to work in a hospital with TBI patients or even have my own clinic and assist patients of all ages. Long term goals can’t be completed with out the help of short term goals which help you to get closer an be successful when getting to your objective. My first short term goals would be to maintain a good GPA. GPA is important for when applying to graduate school. My second short term goal includes being a volunteer in my community which not only benefits the people receiving the help but is also beneficial to gaining experience. My third short term goal is to apply to internships provided by my school, which would help me gain knowledge and experience.
My final short term goal is to never stop learning. I believe that as future health care workers it is important to keep learning about new aspects. Whether it be searching scholarly articles online or attending conferences. I believe that even after you are done pursuing your degree, that drive to learn should never stop because the health care system changes constantly and is always coming up with new research. With the short term goals, the one main barrier that may impede me from accomplishing them would be time management and public speaking.
Time management and public speaking have always been aspects that have caused me to struggle throughout my college career. What balances out my weaknesses are my strengths. I may not have good time management skills or great public speaking skills but I am good at keeping organized and being a hard worker. My other strength would be that I am fluently bilingual in English in Spanish. This is crucial because many schools and colleges today are trying to retain and graduate diverse speech pathologist (Stewart & Gonzalez, 2002). There is always a growing population of diverse people and more and more there will be more diverse SLPs that will help serve them.
