Year 1 Report

This is why we started Wacky Wednesday this past semester, where we sat at a different place each Wednesday afternoon and got to know our new deskmates. Now, as we embark on our first clinical placements, we are missing the classroom comradery (including the loud and enthusiastic, if not completely tuneful singing of “Happy Birthday” every couple of days), but are so excited to be out in the field! A new challenge and a break from academics is certainly welcome, although our studies have been a lot smoother so far than expected thanks to the immense support of our academic rep and her “lifesaving” study sessions.

The six months of graduate school we have completed involved much more than simply preparing us for work in our initial areas of interest. They have brought many surprises and opened our eyes to the exciting possibilities within the world of Speech-Language Pathology. Seeing SLP in action, we are also gaining a deeper appreciation for how holistic, diverse, and impactful it is. For this we have to thank our amazing professors and guest speakers (hurray for the accessibility brought to us by Zoom lectures!), such as Nancy Kaufman and many other distinguished and knowledgeable SLPs and researchers from across the globe. We are looking forward to seeing how upcoming clinical placements and classes further inspire and mould us. If you would like to get to know our enthusiastic, caring, and quirky class a little better, please look up our class music video on YouTube (SLP Class of ’24). We are looking forward to working with you!

A “fun fact” about our group is that we have no twins in the class – but two triplets. For those wondering what the odds of that are, we did some googling and found that 1 in 30 children born in Canada is a multiple, but 97% of those are twins… so although we weren’t able to find an exact number, it seems they’re pretty slim!