This is the next in a series of posts by recipients of the Career Services Summer Funding grant. We’ve asked funding recipients to reflect on their summer experiences and talk about the industries in which they’ve been spending the summer. You can read the entire series here.
This entry is by Kathryn Solomon, COL ’16
Most of us do not think much about our ability to communicate. Whether it was learning one, two, or even several different languages as a child, your ability to speak likely developed with ease. In fact, language acquisition is often described by linguists as instinctive–something that comes as naturally as eating or breathing. For many people, however, learning to speak is not so easy. At Boston University, the department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences trains students to recognize and diagnose speech and language disorders in children and adults–disorders that can impair the ability to physically form speech sounds, to understand language, or to express thoughts and ideas with language.
I spent my summer working in the Boston University Child Language Lab, studying speech and language patterns in typically-developing and autistic children under the guidance of Dr. Sudha Arunachalam. Working all summer in the lab, accompanied by students with similar interests, has helped to reaffirm my decision to pursue a Master’s degree in speech-language pathology after graduation. Although finding my niche in the incredibly broad field of psychology has been one of my greatest challenges while at Penn, I finally focused my interests onto the study of language after taking several courses in psycholinguistics this past year. In the spring, I was ecstatic to find out that I would be spending my summer working in the Child Language Lab studying language acquisition.
My time in the lab has taught me about some of the many methods used to study the way that children acquire language as they develop. Using a computer monitor that has built-in eye tracking software, we can track where a child looks as she hears a word for the first time. For example, a child participating in a study will be simultaneously presented with two videos, each displaying a different action. They will then hear a dialogue that contains a nonsense verb (e.g. “The boy is mooping”). The eye tracking software allows us to determine which video the child prefers to look at as she hears this new word, and this data is later used to infer what kinds of information she was able to extract from visual clues present in the video and from the syntax of the sentence. The knowledge that is ultimately gained from these studies helps to inform the development of clinical treatments for children with speech and language disorders.
While the studies themselves are fairly rigid in how they must be conducted, we also had plenty of time to play around and have fun with the toddlers and young children who came in to participate. The lab is well equipped with an abundance of toys and books that we used to help each child feel a little more comfortable in the new environment. Interacting with the children, who were hilarious and adorable, was by far my favorite part of working in the lab, and it only helped to strengthen my desire to eventually work with children in a clinical setting. I was also able to watch one of our PhD students perform developmental testing on several of the younger participants, which provided me with a much more thorough understanding of what my future career might be like.
Although most days were spent running studies, coding data, and organizing consent forms, the experience that I gained in the lab was not limited to research. I also had the valuable opportunity to learn about the study and practice of speech-language pathology from Boston University students pursuing a similar path. I made new friends with whom I shared plenty of stories and laughs, and I got to explore the beautiful city of Boston. Most importantly, I was able to spend my summer studying a topic that I have become extremely passionate about, and I am now that much more excited to begin training for my future career. Working in the Child Language Lab all summer was an incredibly fun, informative, and rewarding experience. Thank you to Dr. Arunachalam and to Career Services for providing me with this amazing opportunity!
I think part of the fear comes from not knowing the other candidates; not knowing what you’re up against. You entered the marathon but what if Mo Farah’s in the race? I think there’s only one way to approach a job interview. You must go with the attitude that if there IS a better candidate than you, he/she is going to have to be pretty darned good to beat someone as good as you. The preparation you do should instil that belief. Most candidates don’t prepare at all. You can succeed in your job interviews, you need only a bit of preparation! I wrote a review of a popular interview book here http://thecareerhero.com/reviews/ultimate-guide-to-job-interviews-answers/