Nicole Sinske
CDIS 310: Research Literacy in CDIS
1/29/13
Paper #1 Most children have a dream of what they want to be when they grow up. Many choose such things as a professional athlete, a policeman, a doctor, or something along those lines. I was one of those children. My dream was to become a veterinarian. Name an animal; I’ve had it as a pet at least once in my life. It was the perfect career for me. I had never once thought of becoming a speech-language pathologist.
The truth is, I despised that field of work. Growing up, I suffered from chronic Otitis Media and as a consequence, had some temporary hearing problems that caused me to fall behind the rest of my cohort. Due to my predicament, I was put into speech therapy until 4th grade. I felt different, even less adequate, when I was pulled out of class to go ‘spend time’ with the speech pathologist. Little did I know, at that age, how important speech therapy would eventually become to me.
It wasn’t until about 4 years ago, when my grandpa experienced a stroke, that I realized this importance. For his rehabilitation, he was required to go to physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy. I was attending one of his speech therapy sessions when it hit me. It was like being hit over the head with a light bulb. Speech therapy was not only helping my grandpa but it had helped me as well, when I was a child. Speech therapy had made a huge impact in my life whether I had enjoyed it at the time or not. I could not believe that it took me that long to grasp the deep connection I had with the field of communicative disorders. After my epiphany, I decided to pursue my new dream of impacting others lives the way mine and my grandpa’s lives had been impacted. That is why I chose to get my degree in communicative disorders.
As soon as I set my mind on my career, I knew I would be applying to