Graduate / Speech Language Pathology Statement of Purpose for University of Virginia [3]

Hello,

So UVA just required a general statement of purpose for their program. You just need to talk about your interest in the field, why you want to be in their program, etc. There wasn't even a word or page limit, but when I asked about my 1.5 page, 1.5 spaced paper, they said that that would work. I'm going to submit this one very soon, but I will be using basically the same paper for my other school which has a later deadline. Thank you for your help!

Growing up with a librarian for a mother, I developed an interest in reading and literacy at an early age. While other kids were checking out two or three books at a time, I would always come up to the front desk carrying as many books as I could fit into my arms. I won spelling bees and entered reading challenges at school. My first job was as an assistant at the local library. In addition to shelving and helping people find books, I helped organize activities to draw children into the library. An arts and crafts project would relate to a particular story, or a dance lesson would encourage children to express themselves and communicate through music and movement.

While in high school, I joined an organization called Building with Books, which aimed to reduce poverty and illiteracy through community service and education. I was one of three students chosen to travel to a rural village in Mali, Africa, and spend two weeks helping to build a schoolhouse to replace the worn down hut that was serving as their school. As part of their agreement with Building with Books, the villagers promised to enroll equal numbers of boys and girls in the school. Literate villagers trained with the organization to provide community education, where both children and adults were given lessons in reading, writing, math and other subjects.

My interest in speech language pathology began when I took a phonetics course and a language development course. Previously, I had been interested in occupational therapy and was taking the courses required for entry to those programs. I had been volunteering at the John Muir Medical Center in the rehabilitation department when I realized that occupational therapy wasn't holding my interest. I still wanted to help people improve their quality of life, so I started observing the speech pathologists in the department and researched the field more thoroughly. Classmates encouraged me to take the SLP path, and after completing those two courses, I knew I had chosen the right field. I found phonetics fascinating and was thrilled to complete a language analysis assignment. I shadowed several speech pathologists and happily decided that my career would be as a speech language pathologist.

Language is vital in communicating your thoughts and ideas to others, and when an individual is unable to articulate themselves due to a language impediment or delay, the communication system breaks down. Not only is language important for oral communication, but it is necessary for written communication as well. Too often, many children and adults experience setbacks in their reading and writing skills, especially when they live in low socioeconomic households and communities. A desire to help ensure that children in these situations would grow up with the skills necessary for obtaining a job or continuing their education led me to volunteer with Project Literacy while I was in college and Reading Partners after I finished school.

Both Project Literacy and Reading Partners focus on improving the reading and writing skills of children from low income neighborhoods, with the hopes that the students will succeed both academically and professionally throughout their lives. Many children simply aren't exposed to books or complex dialogue as toddlers and as a result lag behind their peers in all areas of language development. Reading Partners in particular has a program developed to bring children one to two grade levels behind up to the correct level by the end of the school year. I work with a 5th grade boy who is already half way to his grade level since beginning tutoring near the start of the school year.

In addition to volunteering with children, I work as a caregiver for a 95 year old woman and I see firsthand what illness and old age can do to a person's speech abilities. While she has been lucky enough to not suffer from stroke or infection, her speech occasionally runs together and she is unable to write clearly anymore. I must enunciate much more loudly and clearly in order to be understood. While these symptoms are due primarily to old age, it has piqued my interest in aphasia and dysphagia.

As it is still early in my speech language pathology career, I am not certain of the exact path I will take. I have an interest in both children and adults, and as a student in the University of Virginia's speech language pathology program I will have the opportunity to work in a variety of medical and educational settings and explore the options available to me as a speech pathologist. I look forward to the opportunity to practice my clinical skills with the talented faculty at the Sheila C. Johnson Center and gain competence in a variety of communication disorders that will allow me to make a difference in people's lives.