So, you think you want to be a speech and language therapist. That is awesome. Thank you for considering a challenging, rewarding and exciting (and sometimes pretty tiring) course. It’s also true that it can be tricky to figure out what to do next, how to get more information about universities and also about what the job entails (aside from reading fascinating student blogs…). So here are some suggestions I have, some of which may help you decide whether or not it’s the right path for you.

Go to a higher education fair – there may be one being held at your school, college, or at a venue in your nearest big town or city. These are big events where representatives from lots of universities come along to give you info about their institution and courses offered there. They’re also a really good way of meeting current students, which may give you an idea of the atmosphere of a particular university. If they offer SLT as a course, you’ll be able to look at a prospectus, find out about entry requirements and get information on how to contact relevant departments or schools- admissions, for example- if you have specific or complex questions.

There may also be opportunities to attend talks, perhaps also at your school or college. In a few weeks I’ll be going along to a health professions morning, where students rotate around different stations, each manned by a health student or professional. We give a short presentation on our average day, pros and cons of the job and leave time for questions. For me, this is one of the most exciting things we can do and it’s amazing to see young people get interested in something they didn’t know about before. I definitely don’t want it to sound like everyone comes away totally inspired, but at least they’re more informed about their options.

I would say that a really important thing to do at this stage is not panic if it seems like you’re not studying relevant subjects. My A levels were in English literature, art and design and drama, I have a drama degree and I still got a place on the course. Yes, I did an extra science A level as I was advised this would help with my application, so I went ahead and grafted for it. It’s not too late to make new decisions and there are ways of getting places that may not be listed in the prospectus- check with the university you’re thinking of applying to about equivalent qualifications. But before I took that step, I did as much volunteering as I could to try and make sure that I knew something about what SLT involves. So I had specific examples of clients and intervention/therapy strategies that I could reflect upon in my personal statement.

Finally, and most importantly, if you’re not sure then don’t worry and take your time. Not to sound too dramatic about the whole thing, but undertaking a vocational course is a big decision. So breathe, do your research and get some experience. The rest will follow.

(N.B. The cat in the meme is not Mouse; there is no way she’d let me put a tie on her).

If you would like to learn more about studying Speech and Language Therapy at City, you can visit the course page here.

Last year I wrote a blog about working as a Widening Participation Ambassador, helping out when school groups visit the university. These days are designed to help young people-from primary school age all the way up to the end of sixth form/college- decide whether they think university might be somewhere they’d like to go. We run subject-specific days and also general higher education taster days. Both of these involve campus tours, question-and-answer sessions with ambassadors about how they came to be at uni and how they gained places on their particular courses, and other hands-on activities.

There is also the opportunity for ambassadors to run subject-specific workshops, so that visitors may gain a little more insight into what a subject is like to study. Many of the courses on offer at City-including speech and language- are vocational, meaning that you’re qualified for a particular job once you graduate (not the case for my drama degree…clearly….). So, when I was asked to plan and run one of these workshops as part of a health taster week, I wanted to focus on different aspects of the SLT role, because, quite frankly, lots of people have no idea what we do. So, I thought I’d say yes immediately and then worry about what I was actually going to do later.

Thus the workshop was born. For the first part, students play around with different thickeners and learn a little bit about swallowing difficulties, watch some videofluroscopy videos (an x-ray of a swallow- see the rather weird-looking picture) and reflect on some of the difficulties associated with prescribing thickener for a client. The second part is focussed on adults with aphasia (see the blog about volunteering at Roberta Williams Centre). Participants get to design a new area of a virtual world called EVA Park, which is the brainchild of City staff.  It’s a place where adults with aphasia get to practise everyday conversation. They’ve got to think about places that the users would want to visit and that would also promote functional communication. Existing places include a hairdresser, a café and a doctors’ surgery. Ideas that have come from the workshops have included a gallery, an allotment and an airport. It is highly likely that this description of EVA really does not do it justice, so here’s a link to a video that explains it much better:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouF1Nwvo6js

So, the workshops. The first one was…alright. The second, third, fourth and ongoing ones have been much better. It’s been amazing to not only see students learn things about SLT that they really had no idea about before, but also to see how sensitively they deal with potentially difficult subjects. I’ve been able to use it for primary and secondary school students, and spread the word about SLT and the great work we can do as therapists. It’s also been brilliant practise for presenting and training, as this is something that will almost certainly be part of my job role. And- quite wonderfully-for me, there is nothing quite like talking about my future job to make me feel incredibly enthusiastic and excited about it.

If you would like to learn more about studying Speech and Language Therapy at City, you can visit the course page here.