Students who want to apply to the Speech Pathology and Audiology graduate program attended a workshop to ask questions about the application process.

One student interested in the workshop explained why she was interested in applying to the program.

“For [speech pathology], [grad school] is kind of a requirement,” said Alicia Lagmin, a senior and National Student Speech Language Association president. “You can’t really get much done with just a bachelor’s. To be an actual speech pathologist they require an actual master’s degree.”

During the workshop Darla Hagge, the department’s graduate coordinator, went over the application process on the speech pathology website and touched on every bullet point, stopping to take questions from students who need clarification on certain items on the list.

“Sometimes what is helpful is you don’t have to have many volunteer experiences,” Hagge said. “The strength and quality of your experiences is your multicultural experiences.”

She also said that students should highlight the diversity in their life and talk about the fact that they know four languages.

“It feels kind of awkward because it feels like you’re tooting your own horn,” Hagge said. “But this is the time to do it in your life.”

The 10-minute video requirement is a way students can add to their application that don’t seem to fit anywhere else, said Hagge and it is also a place to show the quality of your oral response.

“Don’t wait until the last minute,” said Sharon Sudman-Shultz, a Sac State alumna about the video portion of the application. She said her video got deleted and she had to do it all over.

Another student said she attended the workshop because the process can be confusing, and explained what she has been able to get done.

“All I’ve done so far is print out all of the instructions… for all my five schools,” said Kendall Bower, a speech pathology major. “(I’ve) asked for letters of recommendation, rough drafted my personal statement and then attempted the Communication Sciences and Disorders Centralized Application Service.”

Updated 3:34 p.m. for clarity  

Updated 5:17 p.m. Dec. 1, 2015 to reflect that in the quote “(I’ve) asked for letters of recommendation, rough drafted my personal statement and then attempted the Communication Sciences and Disorders Centralized Application Service.”  ‘attempted to contact’ was removed because it was factually incorrect.