MilliCal is a sophomore now, and she has a quandary.
1.) She can live at home and attend a college with a full scholarship and get a degree in a field she is interested in, but isn’t precisely what she wants. It would require a year of post-bachelor* studies (that she would have to pay for), that she would have to get perfect grades in to proceed
– or –
2.) She can go away to an (in-state public) college that she will have to pay something for after this year, but doesn’t require the post-bachelor studies, and which wouldn’t require perfect grades.
She wants to study Communication Disorders/Speech Pathology.
In order to be a working Speech Pathologist (rather than an assistant), you really need at least a Master’s degree.
Is there anyone on the Board with experience in Speech Pathology/Communication Disorders (or who knows or is related to someone like that) who can comment on this?
*I never heard of these either. They’re not master’s degree courses, but prerequisites for the Master’s degree that one normally takes as an undergrad.
I can’t speak to speech pathology programs, but I can help you build a cost benefit analysis if you know the $numbers involved. That includes amounts borrowed and approximate interest rates.
I strongly suggest spending some time working before getting a masters. You get a lot more out of graduate studies when you have a deeper understanding of your industry and have developed the start of a professional network.
It might depend a lot on the industry, but I went into grad school with no working experience in the field and faired just fine. Most of my classmates didn’t have any experience either, and the one that did never seemed to be able to use any of her previous work in school.
Again, PR (my degree) could very well be different than an MBA or something like that. But I wouldn’t be afraid of jumping right into school. If you wait too long you might never go.
My wife has a Bachelor’s in communication disorders, and went on to get a Master’s in special education.
According to her, if you want to be a speech pathologist, you MUST be certified as a speech pathologist (your state may differ, but be sure to check.) If option 1 isn’t a course of study that qualifies MilliCal to take the certification test, then yes, she’ll need additional courses.
Think of it like nursing. One can go to college and get a Bachelor’s degree in nursing. But until one gets certified as a Registered Nurse, it doesn’t really count.
If MilliCal wants to teach, sooner or later she’ll need a Master’s, regardless of her background. But that’s pretty much true for teachers in every field.
After that, your questions really come down to how much you/she want or can afford to pay, whether she can maintain a perfect GPA and whether she wants to push herself to complete the program in four years instead of five.