Gjackson Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 Hey! I have recently become interested in being a PA. I am 21 and I will be graduating in May of 2012 with a Bachelors in speech pathology. I have been accepted into Grad school for speech pathology for August of 2012, but I want to go to grad school to be a PA instead. I need some advice and don't know where to begin. For PA school I still have some prerequisite science classes I will need to take and I need to retake the GRE again. Plus the big thing: I have no shadowing experience yet. I know some schools in GA require from 100 to 2000 hours. The 3 schools I will be applying to (south university) requires no specified amount of hours, ( mercer) requires 1000 hours, and (GSHU) requires 100 hours. After I graduate, should I take a year off to complete all this stuff and then apply to a PA program or should I go ahead and attend grad school for speech pathology and work on this stuff for PA school during that time and once I graduate then apply to PA school? if I decide to go the route of taking a year off after graduating in may 2012 when should I start applying to PA school? Any and all advice is welcome and very much appreciated!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpagano Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 Hey!I have recently become interested in being a PA. I am 21 and I will be graduating in May of 2012 with a Bachelors in speech pathology. I have been accepted into Grad school for speech pathology for August of 2012, but I want to go to grad school to be a PA instead. I need some advice and don't know where to begin. For PA school I still have some prerequisite science classes I will need to take and I need to retake the GRE again. Plus the big thing: I have no shadowing experience yet. I know some schools in GA require from 100 to 2000 hours. The 3 schools I will be applying to (south university) requires no specified amount of hours, ( mercer) requires 1000 hours, and (GSHU) requires 100 hours. After I graduate, should I take a year off to complete all this stuff and then apply to a PA program or should I go ahead and attend grad school for speech pathology and work on this stuff for PA school during that time and once I graduate then apply to PA school? if I decide to go the route of taking a year off after graduating in may 2012 when should I start applying to PA school? Any and all advice is welcome and very much appreciated!!!! Determine if you want to be a PA by shadowing a handful of them in various specialities. Then, if that is something you want to do complete your prerequisites while volunteering/working in a healthcare environment. SLP is a great profession as well. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greenmood Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 I would highly recommend a year off, and this is why. First, you need to find out what you really want to do. I did the same thing you're contemplating, only I was already done with a semester of my original program, so please trust me when I say it's worth it to really understand and make an informed decision. If you already suspect you don't want to be a speech therapist, why would you waste that time and money in a graduate program? A couple things in your post made me think this might have been a recent choice for you. See if your speech program will allow to you defer matriculation by a year, instead of declining the seat entirely. When I switched to PA, I originally withdrew from my other program on LOA to test the waters. That way I wasn't blowing my entire future. It sounds calculating, but higher education is like that sometimes. Please understand the difference between shadowing and healthcare experience. I looked up one of the schools in your post - Mercer's requirement is for 1000 hours of HCE, not shadowing. That means you need to be working with patients, not following a PA. In your case I recommend both, though. Shadowing first in a variety of specialties so you know for sure that you want to do it at all before you jump ship on speech. You could probably arrange that before you graduate. Don't be in a rush. As for when to apply... it depends on when you finish those pre-reqs, accumulate those work hours, etc. Being a PA requires a lot of initiative and perseverance (just like a lot of things in life, really). No better time to start that than now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmpetersen Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 SLPs get great HCE...but if you've already decided that you don't want to throw money at a Speech master's degree because you would just be turning around and doing the same thing for PA...then I would definitely take this time to secure some type of job. I have a friend who is a speech assistant because she couldn't get into grad school. I don't think you can work in a hospital with this position - it's more of house-calls and working with children who are having trouble with words/autism/etc. If you could find something part-time, at least it would look good on a resume and let you make a little money while you take those pre-reqs(my speech friend makes over $60k). You can definitely get into GHSU without any paid experience, but you should have some pretty substantial shadowing hours and other volunteer projects to list on your resume. I like the idea of defering speech grad school for a year. You might find that you haven't been able to get as much done as you hoped, and it would be nice to have something to fall back on. If you end up working as a clinical SLP for a few years, I think it would be pretty hard for a PA school to turn you down! You will want to start applying to schools as early as possible - I don't remember if mercer or south are on CASPA, but CASPA opens in April and will start sending apps in June. GHSU isn't due until a little later..maybe September or October and is not on CASPA, but I would start getting your app together as soon as you can. Applying is a lot of work - I felt like I had 2 full-time jobs during the summer while I was applying/shadowing/writing essays! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpagano Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 All great advice. Take the year off and think about what you really want to do--get the deferment if possible :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winterallsummer Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 Man... speech pathologist is a great degree and competitive as well, also can pay almost as well as PA in some situations. Man you have a tough choice ahead of you. Don't forget you'll need to get some health care experience for PA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gjackson Posted December 22, 2011 Author Share Posted December 22, 2011 Thank you so much for the advice!!!!!! I have a lot to decide and think about! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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