speechpathology

Well I remember a while back, this organization called Health Career Connections had internships for undergraduates interested in the health care field, including speech pathology. They are aimed towards increasing diversity in the health care field,so they are aimed towards minorities,but I am sure anyone can apply. Unfortunately, I think they have stopped accepting applications for this summer.

They are in Boston and California. They pay you a stipend but you will be on your own in terms of housing and transportation.

http://www.healthcareers.org/main/faqsforstudents.htm

Here is a bit about a SLP student who went through the program

http://www.healthcareers.org/main/documents/CaseStudy-MassachusettsGeneralHospital.pdf

I recommend looking at hospitals for part-time work, it's also possible to find rotating weekend work. I worked in Newborn Medicine on a rotating weekend schedule on a birth defects project and part-time during the week in an Otolaryngology department.

If you are solely interested in the internship experience and not pay, then I would suggest making a few cold calls. I did this a month ago and had a lot of success. I just googled speech pathology private practices, rehab centers, etc. in my area and called around. Everyone that I spoke with was really receptive to the idea (especially when you tell them that you will be working with them for free) and many places had existing internship opportunities. I ultimately decided to go with a place that does integrative pediatric therapy and I am really pleased with the outcome (so far since the actual internship hasn't begun). I am getting 3 hours credit for an internship class that my university offers (the university gives you a working list but you have the option to deviate from the list)and the facility that I am interning with gets free help. The only stipulation that my university puts on the internship host is that we don't get stuck in some back office shuffling paper and that we actually participate in therapy related tasks. You might try doing the same thing. Who knows, it could bring about success.

I would highly recommend volunteering. Like the poster above, people really love the free help! I volunteered with a number of SLPs during my undergrad, and I learned so much. Volunteering looks great on a grad school application as well. You could even have a few different volunteer placements over the summer so that you can gain experience working with different populations and with different settings. All of my volunteer placements have been very hands-on. I often carried out therapy under the SLPs supervision!

I can relate; I remember when I found the SLP field I was super impatient to begin clinical therapy. One summer I worked at a camp for speech and language disabilities as a 1:1 for a student and was able to assist in speech therapy. I also worked as a camp counselor for an English immersion summer camp for students from Taiwan.

If you are at all interested in research, I also found paying summer research internships in two different psychology departments. At the time I was a psych major and I just emailed different researchers I respected to see if they were interested in hiring a summer research assistant.

I'm from a rural area, so hospital opportunities were limited. I would say don't worry if you can't find something where you're working with a speech language patholoigst specifically. There are many summer programs for students with special needs, and if you choose to work in pediatrics these will be the same kids you see in the clinic. I'm grateful I've had lots of fun jobs working with kids in non-clinical settings because that's how you learn to build rapport with kids, make them laugh, see what activities they enjoy.

This may be irrelevant to your situation, but for me it has not been feasible to accept non-paying positions for a few years, I used to volunteer but have really needed the money lately. I don't feel that lacking recent volunteer experience hurt my grad applications.

Hey
Did they ever tell you why you didn't get the internship at the Rusk Institute? I'm applying for it and was wondering how competitive it is. What were your credentials? Do you know anybody who has done it?
Would appreciate a quick response, thanks!!

I think they just said that there were a lot of applicants, and so I was put on the waitlist. My friend applied for psychology at the same time and got in.

As for my credentials at the time:
- Double major in psych and speech hearing
- 3.7 cumulative GPA
- Previous lab experience
- Worked at a place for college students with Asperger's for almost a year
- Worked as an independent contractor for two different disabled individuals (social mentoring a guy with Asperger's and interpreting for a HoH kid, respectively)
- Volunteered with BBBS with a kid who had speech problems
- Used a similar essay to the one that got me into the speech hearing honors program at my university

I would have thought all that would be enough to get me in, but they must have had some really stellar applicants. Anyway, I suggest you apply for it anyway. Don't make the mistake I did by only applying to one internship, thus missing out on opportunities for others. Apply to as many as you can find and then turn down what you feel like once the admissions come in. Good luck!

Hey all!

I enjoyed reading all your comments and found out that each of you have had an experience and volunteered in different places. I am from Saudi Arabia and I recently graduated with Bachelors of Speech,Language and hearing Sciences. I would to like to have more experience in clinical practice and would love your feed back on a place that has volunteer work and in the same time a masters program? Thank you.