(upbeat music)
The Department of Communication Science and Disorders
at the University of Montevallo is about preparing
undergraduate students for graduate work
in speech-language pathology.
Once they are in graduate school, they are prepared
to be professional speech-language pathologists.
During the undergraduate program I felt that I was
adequately prepared going into graduate school.
I feel like the professors really did a good job
preparing us for what grad school would expect
and what you might see in your first semester of clinic.
There are several unique features
in our Department of Communication Science and Disorders.
Our class sizes are very small in comparison
to the other programs in the state and the region.
This allows us to provide students with opportunities
in the speech and science laboratory
for clinical observation and to engage
in the research and write papers with feedback
from professors on their work.
As a speech-language pathology major,
the small class' sizes are beneficial
because you really get to interact more
with your professors and you get on that level of comfort
with them, that you aren't afraid to ask questions
and make comments about the material you're learning.
Our master's degree has a 100% employment rate
and a 100% pass rate on the Praxis examination
in speech-language pathology.
That's the national certification exam required to practice.
When I got into grad school I got to meet so many
different people from my cohort.
They're all from different places.
They all have different experiences than I do.
And I find learning their experiences and sharing my own
is really beneficial for all of us as a unit.
I think what makes our program unique from other programs
is that we focus on clinical teaching.
We really want to produce the best clinician possible.
So we offer them lots of experiences
in our clinic and outside of our clinic.
All of the faculty in our department
have the terminal degree.
They have doctoral degrees in the field.
And what's unique about our faculty is that we are all still
licensed, certified speech-language pathologists.
We all consider ourselves speech pathologists
and we practice and we work in the clinic
in addition to teaching classes.
That allows the student to receive instruction
from a faculty member and then use that instruction
with a patient in our speech and language clinic
that is on campus.
It really feels like almost a family environment.
Everybody's looking out for one another and they wanna know
how you are personally as well as academically.
