How I Became A Speech And Language Pathologist

I was about to graduate from high school and unfortunately economics in the country at that time were bleak. I was fortunate that I lived in New York City and at that time City College system was tuition free . I was working as a bookkeeper in a grocery store and was excited about watching which products were selling and which ones didn’t so I thought that I would go into economics.  My first two college courses in that field were not as exciting as I thought so I readjusted and thought that I would enter the field of education.  I thrived in the courses, however, Lehman college, a division of City University of New York (CUNY) would not allow you to have education as your major as there were massive layoffs of teachers in the city.  I needed to choose a different major.

You were required to take a public speaking class as part of your college core curriculum. One of the projects was to present on a career. My professor suggested that I explore speech and language pathology. I fell in love!  Here was a profession that combined several of my passions, I  was an amateur actress and in therapy, I could use my dramatic skills to engage a client, what I loved about economics was looking at what impacted sales and this could translate to data collection and what teaching methods impacted progress, I loved watching children learn and what more powerful learning is there but learning to speak.

I am not sorry that my life took a detour. I think in this world your path is not a straight one but one filled with adventures around every curve. I have been very fortunate in my career to always see something around the next bend to inspire and excite me.  I am excited to see what’s next.