Dear College Male, It’s me. Jenna. A twenty-something speech-language pathologist. Say what? That means I work in a school, clinic, nursing facility, or hospital. I work on speech, language, cognition or swallowing. So you’re in college. Let’s be honest. You don’t want to be an accountant. You really want to be the 1324th male in the Sports Management program at your university. But, let’s get serious, you need a major that might actually keep you from moving back to your parents’ basement until your 35. Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered. Two Words: Ladies and Legos. You have to take some general ed. courses to get your degree anyway. Go look up the communication disorders 101 class on campus. You can read the course information but I’m going to tell you what you REALLY need to know about being an SLP (keep up: that means Speech-Language Pathologist).
1. In the words of Motley Crue: Girls, Girls, Girls {because women, women, women just doesn’t sound as good}. Wouldn’t you love to work in a profession where females make up 96.2% of the professionals. In 2012 there were 136,000 ASHA licensed SLPs, meaning 1 man to every 32 women. You can spend that $30/month you would’ve spent on Match.com buying sticks (to beat the crowds of women off.)
2. You’ll learn words like epiglottis, diadochokinetic rate, glottal fry, velopharyngeal, fricative, schwaa, malocclusion, bolus, prosopagnosia and frenulum. Your friends won’t know if you’re cursing, talking dirty, or if you’ve been to med school. If you can’t pronounce those words yet just remember that we always do it with frequency, intensity, and duration.
3. Playing legos, race cars and angry birds on the ipad is a daily requirement at my job. Even if your girlfriend is nagging you to ‘grow up’, your clients never will.
4. /ju wl bi eɪbl tə rid fənetɪks/ and use sign language. Bond, James Bond. It’s all about secret codes.
5. This economy sucks. The Jetsons’ maybe have used Rosie as their maid, but healthcare jobs will always be required. While there are changes within our field, we don’t need to fear the Jetson’s era, when robots do our jobs.
All kidding aside, you’ll never forget the first time a 3 year old with Autism says her first word. For me it happened on mini trampoline. You’ll never forget the look of thanks when a stroke patient gets to eat real food again. Mashed potatoes never seemed so important. And you’ll never feel more compassion than when you make memory books for dementia patients. Remembering family members is the most important thing to them. Our profession was recently rated one of the 25 Most Meaningful Jobs that Pay Well. We desperately need more males in our profession. The incidence of communication disorders is higher in boys than girls. Adult role models for our clients are rare. So go check out that Communication Disorders 101 class and let me know if you need 10 more reasons to join me! Love, Jenna Sources: http://www.asha.org/Publications/leader/2013/130801/Where-the-Boys-Arent.htm http://www.asha.org/uploadedFiles/2012-Member-Counts-Final.pdf Thanks for laughing with me today 🙂
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Lauren LaCour says
Love it! Our school district just hired a male SLP, and it’s great! He is awesome with his middle school population. 🙂
Lauren
Busy Bee Speech
Jenna Rayburn says
I bet his kids love it!
m.stein says
Well said, Jenna! 🙂
SLP Gone Wild says
Totally agree! I really wish we had more SLPs in the schools…it would be so awesome for all of the boys we work with!!
Jenn
Crazy Speech World
SLP Gone Wild says
*more MALE SLPs. 🙂
Jenna Rayburn says
Thanks! My school DOES have a handful of male teachers so we are lucky in that sense!
Stefani says
This is awesome! My husband loved this too-especially the match.com comment. 🙂 And you are so right-we desperately need male role models for these kids. Great post!
Jenna Rayburn says
haha. Thanks Stefani!
Anonymous says
I love it. My CF supervisor is a male. He was the only one at a district meeting recently.
Sara says
This rubs me the wrong way. It strikes me as sexist and unprofessional.
Jenna Rayburn says
Thanks for the feedback Sara. It was meant to be humorous!
Sublime Speech - Danielle Reed says
Thanks for showing the pros of having more males in our profession. While some of this post is just hilarious, other parts are very true… our kiddos are mostly boys and often respond better to males in therapy. It would be truly great to have a better balance. Thanks for the humor (and truth) on this Sunday morning!
Katie says
LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!!!
Miss Speechie says
too cute! love it!
Anonymous says
Brilliant letter Jenna! I think the same can be said for male special needs assistants; I think a lot of the students I work with would benefit from a positive male role model too!
Jenna Rayburn says
Agreed! And really primary teachers in general could use some males!
Deana says
Haha, my husband and I are both in our last year of graduate school to become SLP’s (we’re both currently classroom teachers). He will get a chuckle out of this post. 🙂
Primary Punch
Jenna Rayburn says
Hooray! Another one for our team! Glad to hear it Deana!
Cindy and Kristina says
I agree that we need more males in this profession, especially in the school setting. Love how you found a funny way to point this out! Right now, my district does not have any male SLPs, but we do have a few fantastic male special education teachers!
TeachSpeech365 says
Definitely in need of more male SLPs! I think a male perspective would benefit many of the kids and adults we work with!
Seth Bowden, M.S. CF-SLP says
As a recent SLP grad starting my CF in the school system…I appreciate this post! I was one of two males in my graduating class and both of us are now working with peds.
Excited to make a difference!
bldrnrpdx says
I am totally stealing this and posting it elsewhere (with appropriate attribution, of course). Maybe I can convince a few guys out there…
Julie says
Love this article. Showed it to my son in college…..he’s considering speech pathology.
Ben says
I’m a senior Communication Disorders major in an undergraduate program. I was googling stuff about males in the SLP profession and found this article very encouraging, as I have been the only guy in almost all of my major classes. As light-hearted as it is, I feel more confident and motivated to apply for grad schools and persevere through these next few years. Thank you!
adminSRN says
Hi Ben, I’m glad you took it in jest 🙂 I can’t tell you how much many of our student just click with male SLPs. I’m sure adult patients feel the same way so I hope you keep going! You’ll be highly sought after once you graduate!
Josué urtisa balboa says
Im a Chilean male SLP (south america) and i just love my job. I work in kindergardens and hospitals with kids, It has been the most benefit activity ive ever done.
Jenna says
I’m an SLP student named Jenna! This is too cute and very accurate!