My story
I was like so many high school graduates. I started college not having a clue as to what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I took class after class hoping there would be something I found interesting enough to turn into a career. I was getting some pressure from my family to major in education. I think teaching is a wonderful profession but it just wasn't for me.
During my second semester in college, the man who was really like a grandfather to me, Bob, had a stroke. My mother had called me when I was out that day telling me my grandmother was concerned because he hadn't moved his car in a few days, which was very unlike him (he and my grandmother lived in the same apartment building). So I took a ride out to Brooklyn to see if I could get him to answer the door. When I knocked, he yelled "go away." When I informed him of who it was, he began mumbling and immediately I knew something was wrong.
My Grandmother called 911 and also called a good friend of his to help me break the door down. Once we were able to get inside, we found him on the kitchen floor, the place where he had been for days.
At the hospital, Bob was lucid but couldn't speak clearly. His speech was slurred and I couldn't understand a word he said. I could tell he understood what I was saying through head nods and shakes (I learned much later on he had Broca's Aphasia). I just remembered saying to myself "How can we get him to talk better?" I had never heard of speech therapy other than in passing. I didn't really know at the time that he needed a speech therapist. But I never had the opportunity to help him since he passed away a week later from another stroke. This was one of the hardest moments of my life.
A few semesters later, as luck would have it, I was declared an English major and it was required that I take some sort of English related course other than a literature one. So I enrolled in a linguistics course. I was only enrolled for two weeks in that course because I had to be home in time for my little sister. Those two weeks were life changing.
I found those few linguistics classes fascinating but really didn't know what I could do with it professionally. During one of the classes, a fellow student had mentioned that she was taking this course as a prerequisite for Speech Pathology and was hoping to transfer the credits to a college that had the major (College of Staten Island does not have a speech program in case anyone needs to know). And there it was, in front of my face.
I started researching and asking a lot of questions so I could determine whether or not this really was what I wanted and I needed to know fast since I was going into my 5th semester and would need to transfer. Another professor of mine recommended Kean University in New Jersey. Within a week, I had an appointment with the head of the Speech Pathology Undergraduate Department. A semester later, I was accepted into the program and continued at Kean through graduate school where I earned my Master's Degree.
It was really a twist of fate given what had happened to Bob and how I always said that I wish there was something I could've done to help him talk more clearly so I could at least understand him. If I'm being honest, a part of me did it for him (well, more than just part of me).
