Speech Language Pathologist Personal Statement

Growing up in the small town of Livingston, Tennessee, I attended speech language therapy with my brother who is four years younger; I was only 6-10 years old when this occurred. The therapist, Ms. Susan, would use me during therapy sessions to play games and interact with my brother as she tried to elicit communication from him. From this experience, my dream of becoming a speech language pathologists blossomed. Moreover, I was very passionate about helping my brother learn to effectively communicate with his peers. During high school, I found great joy in helping students and adults with special needs. I often took Bryan, my friend with special needs, to local sporting events and found great joy in learning to communicate with him. As I learned more about speech language pathology by shadowing the school system’s speech language pathologist and volunteering with the hospital’s speech language pathologist, it became clear I was meant to become a speech language pathologist. Seeing Ms. Susan’s impact on not only my brother, but my family as a whole was such an enlightening experience.
I entered MTSU with 43 hours completed as a dual enrollment student. Thanks

As a dual enrollment student, I was fortunate enough to study abroad. I received a scholarship to participate in the TNCIS Grand European Capitals program and spent three weeks in Paris, Amsterdam and Berlin. This experience was the start of my minor at MTSU. While at MTSU, I was able to do another study abroad. I spent two weeks in Russia and traveled to four different Russian cities. Traveling abroad has opened my mind to different ways of doing things and helped me become more independent while seeing the world. Ironically, in my first clinical internship, I was assigned a teen with a strong British accent, and my study abroad experience was very useful. I was able to differentiate dialectal differences from actual