You want to become a speech and language therapist? This is amazing news. We need more, so thanks in advance for considering a challenging, stimulating and rewarding course and career. If you’re not sure where to start, this month’s blog is here to help.
Firstly, qualifications. These can be scary- they certainly were when I was at school- and definitely something that intimidated me about applying for Speech and Language Therapy. At City, you’ll need 5 GCSEs at grade 4 (C) or above, including maths and English language. A level choices really vary between applicants and there are no specific subject requirements at City, but English, psychology and biology would all be beneficial not only to your application, but also to support your understanding of some of the different modules on the course. Volunteering and shadowing experience are also really valuable, not only when thinking about whether SLT is right for you, but also to show you’re keen and willing to apply yourself and put hours into a clinical course. Charities such as Sense and Stroke Association have tonnes of volunteer opportunities with different aged clients who have different support needs. Any other school/hospital/day centre/community support experience is an excellent idea, and may give you an idea of different skill sets and areas of strength for working with different clients.
You may already know about different areas of work for SLTs (knowing a little bit about this will definitely help at interview), but there are so many. Dysfluency, swallowing disorders, brain injury, developmental language disorder, trauma, voice, head and neck cancer patients…. this is just the very beginning of a huge list of job opportunities. And even within this list is an even more enormous range of settings that an SLT might find themselves working in-schools, clinics, hospital wards and outpatient centres, a mixture of the above.
With so many avenues within SLT, placements are a great opportunity to try everything and really hone into what area you would like to pursue in the future. My own experience at City has included a huge range of placement opportunities, and is definitely one of the reasons I wanted to study in London. With so many different possibilities for experiencing different settings and working with different client groups, I’ve gotten a much better understanding of where I would like to work once I qualify. And what better way to meet and integrate with your future employers than be on a placement with them? I’ve been lucky enough to have recommendations to apply for jobs at two of my previous placement settings, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed for either an adult community (mainly visiting people in their homes) or hospital inpatient role next year. Having said this, my idea is to keep an open mind and see what opportunities are out there once I’ve completed studying. I’m staying curious and perhaps something unexpected will come my way.
If you’re still thinking about becoming an SLT, getting as much information and experience as possible is the way to go. Create opportunities for yourself and be brave with what you try.
If you liked the blog, please feel free to have a browse through the rest of my posts via the links provided on the right!
Also, if you would like to learn more about studying Speech and Language Therapy at City, you can visit the course page here.
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