Career Options after Undergrad

aunt_bea
Thu, 08 Sep 2022 21:00:48 +0000

bpb222:

I worry they are not going to be interactive/social enough because speaking is a significant strength of mine.

I checked your previous posts so I know this is going to sound like a repeat to you, but you really should consider Speech Pathology. Your strong background in English and public speaking would make for a strong candidate applying to grad school.

Your previous posts indicate a difficulty with science-based disciplines, but the professors will do everything to help you because the field is begging for help. You will have job security. The pay is not at outrageous STEM levels, but your pay would be higher or equivalent to some of my friends’ who are professors. (I was offered a position at a university, but my pay was better at my local company.)

I would suggest you seek out a program and get more information on the required science courses for the field. The wonderful thing about this discipline is that you will get group help. Everyone, initially struggles with the science portions, but once you get it, it stays with you and you will use it to help your patients/clients/students.

If you decide to work with children, I would suggest that you target the middle school and high school populations. At a school, you develop your own schedule, work as a member of the IEP team, and you all support each other.

The wonderful thing is that you get to see the assignments that the students receive, and you’ll be helping them, with all of the required readings and interpretations. Our students, who have difficulty with receptive/ expressive and social language, really love how we get creative with the classics. (My former high school students loved my assignments on Poe, Shakespeare, Twain, Dickens, Austen, and contemporary music.)

A number of my colleagues (on the team) did not have the same backgrounds in the classics, that I had had, so, they often asked for my opinions on how to formulate a “creative” lesson plan.

I had one HS student who was always complaining about something. (Picture “Debbie Downer” x10)

He had very weak written language skills (large alphabet print of ~3 inches) and would avoid any and all written assignments. Most of the teachers said he was a behavior problem. (Vision and hearing were normal. I suspected that he had a type of dyslexia and referred.)

I had him watch a clip of the movie, “Summer School” with Mark Harmon. (The clip with the kid writing a letter about sunglasses that broke.) So I told “Mark”, that if he was unhappy with anything, he should write a complaint.
I opened a new Word doc and enlarged the print on his computer and told him to “write one thing you don’t like”.
He said, “I can’t”.
So I said, “tell me something you don’t like”.
He said loudly, “school ‘bucks’!”
So I said, “okay, let’s write that!”
Well the rest of the 3 kids in my room reacted by saying, “Wow, is he allowed to do that???”
I asked them, “Is he using language?”, “Is it a true feeling?”
A collective, “YES”
“Then why can’t we write that?”

By this time, all 4 were interested in his assignment. I told them they could help with the spelling, only if he approved. Having never been in the position of power, Mark had a small grin on his face. They (and “spell-check”) helped with the spelling. By the end of the quarter, he wanted to write anything and everything on that computer-of course, many of these were often complaints, but it got him to start writing and completing some of his class assignments! Absolutely one of my favorite students!! (I really ENCOURAGED him to go out for the debate team!)
You can make a difference and impact someone’s life. Think about it.