A naturalized US citizen born in Germany, for as long as I can remember, XXXX has been my home. Thus, XXXX University is a natural choice among master's degree programs in Speech-Language Pathology. I hope to be selected to contribute to the diversity of your program based on my great passion for and dedication to the goal of helping young children to communicate better – as manifested by my extensive record of accomplishment as a volunteer in this area.
I also believe that my professional experience thus far in international business and communication has enabled me to learn many valuable things that will continue to serve me well as a graduate student in your Communications Disorders Program at XXXX and beyond as an SLP professional. I could not be more excited by the prospect of earning the master's degree in communication disorders at your esteemed university to complement and build upon my volunteer activities on behalf of children suffering from communication disorders, learning to help them more effectively.
Traveling extensively abroad as a liaison between many teams of people was immensely fulfilling, and I gained invaluable skills in effective communication with people from various linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Increasingly, however, over several years, I have felt called to make a career change into one of the helping professions. The most prominent factor in the choice I have made to build a career in SLP is my intense passion and the boundless joy I find in helping young children. Allowing small children to communicate better with the world around them, what can be more sustainable, beautiful, and human than that? I want to throw myself headlong into balancing my professional life with research geared towards helping young children, especially those still three years of age, to better develop communication skills before entering kindergarten; and searching for increasingly effective ways to help disadvantaged children. I see the parents’ role as especially critical at this tender age; thus, motivating parents is extremely high on my list of special interests
.
I look forward to having my practice after gaining experience in various therapeutic situations. I am most intrigued, in particular, with the TBI population and would like to work per diem with these people. I feel exceptional compassion for those that have lost what they once had, and it would be particularly fulfilling for me to have the opportunity to work with this population. I also keenly look forward to the entire immersion experience possible in early intervention. Working with young children, even before they begin preschool, would be my ideal. Helping them have the confidence to communicate before school is imperative, so they do not fall behind. Once I learned that early intervention facilities dictated how many prisons would be built in the future, I knew that this was an area worthy of my devotion. I daydream of having a practice that focuses on art therapy. I have always been an artist, both as a player in the textile industry and my personal life. This is why I love my home, San Franciso, as a center of the art world. Combined with its reputation for being a center for progressive causes, it pains me to even think of having to leave San Francisco for Graduate School.
My motivation to pursue a degree in speech pathology began during “Volunteer Day” at my job. I watched an SLP provide services to a client, and I found myself immediately mesmerized. The compassion and patience of this SLP professional encompassed the essence of what I was searching for in a career that would be fulfilling on every level, social, spiritual, etc. From that day forward, I found my career path. I soon found myself studying in the Post Bachelor Leveling Program in Communication Disorders and took the initiative to seek out opportunities to shadow and get to know Speech-Language Pathologists. While volunteering at Family Development Center (an early intervention facility), I made strong connections with the children and had the opportunity to observe and assist SLPs in the classroom environment. Our goal in the classroom was to elicit language through play. Most of these children were significantly delayed in speech and rarely spoke.
To be able to contribute to their success with language was extremely rewarding. I also soon began shadowing an SLP at a hospital and another at a nursing home. These different experiences helped to grasp better the many facets of communication disorders and the different directions one could take concerning career development in this field. Unfortunately, while taking a course in the leveling program, I had some complications with my pregnancy, which resulted in my having to drop out of a system. Later, however, I successfully retook the course. I also took time off from my education until my child was of preschool age. This turned out to be beneficial for me as well since I began to understand what I learned in my courses and saw first-hand the development of speech in a child. Currently, I am finishing my post bachelor program and am taking “Adult Clinical Process.” This course has given me the opportunity to write a case study of a made-up adult client with TBI and Spastic Dysarthria. The research, assessment writing and therapy recommendations, and overall report give me a promising idea of what being an SLP will be like on the most professional of levels.
I thank you for considering my application to Communications Disorders at XXXX University.
Masters Communication Disorders Personal Purpose Statement
Commentaires