Pathologist Application Letter

Dear Iowa Speech Hearing Association Scholarship Committee,

I am going to start this application letter to you all being honest, I am truly stuck. How do I summarize nearly 6 years of academic work, field practicums, community service, leadership, and goals into a 3-page application? How do I highlight these experiences when I view them as doing what humans are supposed to do for one another and working toward a goal, rather than an event that I can boast about later to pose myself in an honored light? Throughout my undergraduate and graduate career paths to becoming a speech-language pathologist, I have made it my personal goal to never lose track of the “why” behind studying for an exam, learning by doing, and immersing myself in as much

Ambrose University, I am most proud of the research project I was a part of with 4 of my peers. Collectively, we researched male-to-female transgender voice modification therapy. We spent months studying various therapeutic approaches, watching online seminars, practicing using computerized voice equipment, and finally, working with volunteer participants from the quad city community. All summer, I saw a participant one-on-one for an hour, once a week to increase the pitch of her voice. When I work with any individual, I take pride in getting to know them as a person, not simply a client. My personal therapeutic philosophy is that true progress cannot be made unless there is solid trust within the client-clinician relationship. I feel that my relationship with this particular client is representative of what a successful working relationship should look like. In our sessions, we both worked tirelessly for a common goal, but at the same time, laughed, cried, and learned lessons that cannot be taught in a classroom. My client showed me the endless binders of paperwork she had to file in order to be legally recognized as a woman, confided in me about her changing relationship with her children, and made herself vulnerable to the exposure that voice therapy unveils. What I am most proud about my research project is the outcome measure approach I lobbied my group to take. My group is using a confidence interval measure in order to gauge success.

Currently during my internship, I have the unique opportunity to learn from a speech-language pathologist who works as a feeding and swallowing specialist in the hospital’s special care nursery at a hospital. Here, I have learned the lasting impact a calm and confident healthcare provider can have on new nervous parents and their vulnerable child. I feel that I have strengths in these two skills, as well as an approachable personality. On the same token, I wholeheartedly love people from all walks of life. I recognize my own assets of remaining calm under pressure, incorporating patient values, functionality of therapy, and lifelong learning, and would be fortunate to work in any environment where these could be applied. I am a devout yogi and would be fortunate to work in any setting where I could incorporate my two passions of yoga and communication together into