How to Become Speech Language Pathologist

Video Transcript

"Once you've entered college and you say, "Ohh, I think I'd like to be a Speech Language Pathologist", I would first look into district college or the university where you are. Do they have a program that exists because that way you could start taking some of that prerequisite work because there is some that is specific to communicative disorders and speech language pathology that you're going to have to have prior to entering graduate school. If your school or your university does not have a program on-site, there are many out there that you can find online and they will tell you what the courses are and you maybe able to go and start taking these online courses that are going to be needed before you could go into a graduate program. Your graduate degree will be in communicative disorders and yes, you will have a Masters of Science and once you're in the graduate school, that is when you choose, "Am I going to be a Speech Language Pathologist or Am I going to be an Audiologist?" And from there, the road splits and you start going into the classes that are specific for the discipline that you chose. You graduate with your Masters and then you go out and you find a job. And once that job; when you go out to look for a job, you want to make sure that there is an, a supervisor, an on-site supervisor if you're going to a facility, a hospital or you know, your skilled nursing facility; someone that is there. You will be under supervision for your clinical fellowship year which is technically thirty six weeks. You have to three hundred and fifty clinical hours of work and you have to pass the national examination. And then once that, that period your clinical fellowship year is completed, then you're eligible to get your C's which are your Clinical Certificate of Competence."