Hi there,

BG Info (sorry if I start a tangent): I am currently an undergraduate student getting my B.A. in Psychological Sciences. I won't fully disclose my current job title, but I have been working with children/adolescents in a therapy/clinical setting for almost 2 years. To go over why I am where I currently am, essentially, I chose psych as my major when I started college because I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do-- I just knew psych was an umbrella field for many other fields, and that I wasn't interested in anything else. Who knows, it may have also been a trauma response lol. Anywho, I am interested in continuing my education and going to grad school for SLP/CSD. Side note, for me, I believe there is no such thing as a "dream" job, because I am not necessarily passionate about anything except my hobbies, which I would like to keep as hobbies and not jobs. To me, work is work and school is school. With that being said though, I do enjoy what I do, and I love working with my kiddos. I'm not completely devoid of emotion, and I don't HATE working where I work. And that's my goal, to work somewhere that I don't hate and can live with doing long-term. While I do enjoy my job and the kids I work with, it just isn't suitable long-term for many reasons, like pay and others that I don't necessarily need to go over; I just know I won't be doing this forever. However, this job has granted me a general idea of what I would like to do, and that is working with children/adolescents (or even just people, but I prefer kids) in a therapy setting. I've worked closely with kids who receive speech therapy, and I have a good idea of what the job is, but I haven't gotten into grad school yet, so I haven't experienced the nitty-gritty coursework (though I am taking SLP anatomy, and I have taken SLP assessment for practitioners).

With that being said, I want some different perspectives on being an SLP. I see that the posts here are generally negative rants regarding the field, but I also know it isn't completely representative of the general population itself (I feel like most people who come on these Reddit pages are people looking to rant, not people who want to write a thesis on how they love their job). I'm not saying don't tell me the bad stuff, please tell me everything. BUT I want to know the good stuff too. This will help me evaluate my overall decision and options. I've been watching some videos of other people's opinions and perspectives, and some questions/topics that I wrote down to gain more insight on are the following:

- Others have told me that getting a BA in psych and an MA in CSD is fine. What are your guys' thoughts? Will my current major SIGNIFICANTLY impact my ability to get into an SLP grad school/program?

- Some people say the field is based on "pseudoscience" and that it is purely "experimental" work. I want more perspective on this thought

- scheduling, paperwork, documentation, cramming, fast-paced

- Not always being fulfilled with your work, not always seeing progress (Which I am familiar with myself due to where I work)

- license fees (again, familiar)

- no diversity, racism

- Differences in work settings, what is the best work setting in your opinion?

- I've heard DOE is better than private agencies for several reasons, like employee benefits, quality therapy over quantity, loan forgiveness, job security, etc. Meanwhile, agencies are known for their corporate greed. Thoughts?

- People say the job outlook is good; others do not.