hello,
I was hoping someone here could have a look at my personal statement and let me know if there's things I could change as this is my top choice of school and first time applying. I am bilingual as I am fluent in Assyrian so I hope I sound clear in my statement. I am kind of detail oriented maybe that's a bad thing. I am currently attending this school to for the bachelors in communication disorders. I am applying for the masters program in communication disorders. I have not heard of an SLP who is Assyrian, and I read in my book that there are 100 Arab SLPs and audiologists in the world. I also take 2 trains to get to this school as this is about 48 miles where I live and I don't have a reliable car. I spent 20 dollars for gas round trip when I visited it. Imagine going 2 or 3 days :) How does the beginning and end sound? I would like to grab their attention. Thanks.
Imagine yourself at 13 years old being told that you are going in for sinus surgery because if trouble breathing through one side of your nose only to find out that you are unable to hear in your right ear? That is what happened to Rita, my sister, who was 13 years old when she realized that after failing her hearing test, she was told that she had a moderate-to-severe hearing impairment in the lower frequencies and a profound hearing impairment in the middle and high frequencies. When I talked to her she always made me switch to her normal ear and after taking audiology I then realized that in order to hear many important consonant sounds she needed her middle and higher frequencies. I then realized how she feel when having a conversation with someone because she would have to tell the person to switch sides most likely or if they are talking in front of her, to speak louder. She was told that a hearing aid would not help her and so she then was placed in a special education classroom all throughout school until her last day of high school. When she told me about the success that she had with her speech-language pathologist in high school, I immediately went on the computer and researched what an SLP is and exactly what they do as well as the education requirements.
Among the many schools I narrowed my choices down to Governors State University because it was the closest to me and more reasonable for my financial situation. There are no clinics at GSU, however, the clinical sites are all off campus and I thought it was a great way for graduate school students to gain experience in a variety of settings and in many locations as well. I also feel that GSU is a beautiful campus. Through my observations at an elementary school in Skokie, Illinois, I heard a couple of terms that I did not hear in my first few CDIS courses. When the SLP said we would be "pulling out" students from their classroom and have them come to a small classroom for speech therapy I was very excited to be there. I like that it was one-on-one therapy for some students and for the rest of the time it was about 2 or 3. The student to SLP ratio was very appealing to me because I like the fact that each student gets individualized attention throughout their therapy. I think the diversity at GSU is what GSU unique because I feel that there is a great need for bilingual SLPs and I truly feel that I have the potential to become a voice for bilingual children because I was taught in a bilingual classroom in my early elementary years and school actually felt like family, it did not feel like school, which I think was very unique to the school I attended.
I feel culture is very important to an SLP program because I speak Assyrian fluently and Chicago and its northern suburbs have a growing population of Assyrians. My cousins who were refugees came to Chicago the last week of October and this is exactly why I feel that there should be more Assyrian SLPs. I am familiar with the culture and customs of Assyrian people and feel that I have knowledge about the Assyrian culture that would help Assyrian children who might have communication disorders be assessed properly. There are about 80,000 Assyrians living in Chicago alone and is home to the largest Assyrian population in the United States. However, there are only about 100 Arab speech-language and hearing professionals worldwide.
I volunteered in the summer at the Evanston YMCA Foster Reading Center for low income children. We did Buddy Reading where I sat with a child and read to them or while the child was reading I would read along with them in a low tone of voice. I also sat with 3 children around a table and asked them what they think will happen in the story next after I read a page. I feel that this volunteer experience is very valuable to have because some of the kids do not know where the first page in a book starts and this program is enriching to them.
I have managed to maintain a 3.556 GPA while working as a caregiver at the Assyrian Universal Alliance Foundation. I have also received a Chicago Southland Scholarship award that has helped me with my tuition. I want to expand my knowledge both in classes and through clinical experiences. I loved books so much that I remember leaving the library when I was 6 years old with large white garbage bag that my mother gave me full of books while other children only checked out 1 or 2 books. I think that without the sociolinguistics class, I would not have realized that many Arab speakers often pronounce the /b/ at the end of a word as a /p/ phoneme and that is perfectly normal. Also when my mother adds a vowel after a consonant cluster like "si-pring" for "spring" has gave me an insight I have not thought about or paid much attention to before. That by speaking that way it is not a communication disorder. This is something that my mother does when speaking and that will help me with my career as a future SLP. I also want to understand why my mother has trouble expressing herself but understands what I tell her even though she has not been evaluated by an SLP.
As I will be graduating with my Bachelors Degree in Communication Disorders in the summer of 2012 I am open to working in a medical or a school setting. In a medical setting I look forward to performing a Videofluroscopic Swallowing Study or help adults with expressive aphasia. I am also open to working with children in schools with articulation problems, or children with autism like my 12 year old cousin in Arizona. Wherever the path takes me upon completion of my Masters Degree my goal is the same, that is, to give people the opportunity to better their lives by providing compassionate and caring therapy services for a wide range of people with the same or goal. The goal would be to communicate at a level where the person could not or would never think they would.
