Meredith Gould, a second-year master's student in the Speech-Language Pathology program at SHRS.
The University of Pittsburgh Department of Communication Science and Disorders (CSD) is home to the #5 Speech-Language Pathology program in the nation as ranked by U.S. News and World Report. The master’s degree is a two-year program that includes extensive experience in real-world clinical settings from day one.
Meredith Gould (SLP ‘25) is beginning her second year as a master’s student in the Speech-Language Pathology (SLP) program. Here she shares how the program customizes the clinical education for each student and how the Pitt experience is preparing her to better care for her patients as a professional.
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As I am finishing up my first year in the program, I am realizing now more than ever how fortunate I am to be receiving my graduate education through Pitt’s Speech-Language Pathology program. I attended Pitt for my Bachelor of Arts in communication science through SHRS and truly felt there was no better place to continue my education than here.
Clinical Education Opportunities
The Speech-Language Pathology program is equipped with a curriculum that will prepare us to practice across all nine areas of our scope of practice: articulation, fluency, voice and resonance, expressive and receptive language, cognition, hearing, feeding and swallowing, social communication, and augmentative and alternative communication. The clinical education experiences are what makes Pitt’s Speech-Language Pathology program stand out.
From your very first week as a master’s student, you begin clinical rotations in Network practicum placements. These placements happen in real clinical settings in the Pittsburgh region in settings ranging from hospitals to private practice. I have had experiences diagnosing and treating both pediatric and adult populations, and each placement has taught me something different about our field. Given that our scope of practice is so large, Pitt’s clinical placement opportunities are a huge advantage to helping students see as much as we can before we are out in the real world as practicing clinicians. When the time comes for job interviews, we will have had experience in many different clinical placements, which will allow us to demonstrate knowledge and skills across several different areas and populations.
Faculty Member Connections
One of the other factors that sets Pitt’s Speech-Language Pathology program apart is the faculty members. Each faculty member individualizes each student’s learning experience to suit their passions as much as possible, and the clinical education team ensures each student gets to experience a wide range of clinical settings and populations. Associate Professor Erin Lundblom is one of the main faculty members that organizes our clinical rotations and puts so much time and effort into each student’s success! She goes above and beyond to not only place us at our clinical sites, but she continuously checks in on us as people and truly cares about our wellbeing.
No two students in the program will have identical placements. Every single person who guides our education cares about us as scholars and people. They all have the same goal in mind, which is for us to succeed as clinicians, and they will do anything to help us get there. Each student fills out surveys to share clinical interests and provide the clinical education team with information about our goals, interests, time constraints and employment. The clinical education team who places us tries their best to meet the needs of each student, which I think helps make Pitt’s Speech-Language Pathology program so special.
South Hills UPMC Rehabilitation Institute where Gould is completed a clinical placement.
Clinical Placement
This past summer, I worked in my outplacement portion of my clinical journey, where I attended clinic four days a week during the 12-week summer semester session. My placement was at the South Hills UPMC Rehabilitation Institute, where I helped diagnose and treat a wide variety of communication disorders that fell under the categories of cognition, fluency, expressive and receptive language, voice, speech sound or swallowing. Patients needed therapy in these areas for many reasons, some of the most common being patients living with a stroke, traumatic brain injuries, oral cancer or dementia. Day to day, I saw an average of eight to 10 patients and created a unique treatment plan for each patient based on their goals.
Gould demonstrating a common word retrieval activity utilized during a treatment session.
My favorite part about this placement was the connections I built with patients. As a speech-language pathologist, you truly get to know your patients and the stronger rapport you build with them, the more beneficial treatment becomes. Pitt has taught us how important patient/family centered care is, and that is something I got to experience at this placement. Being able to apply what we learned in our classes to real-life patients to help them accomplish their goals makes everything feel worth it!
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Want to learn more about our Speech-Language Pathology program? Check out our website or contact an enrollment specialist at enroll@shrs.pitt.edu.