First of all – woo hoo!!! You did it, you survived grad school! This is a major accomplishment, not to mention you got your first job! No matter what is to come, you should be proud of yourself and give yourself the credit you deserve. Grad school is not an easy task, but guess what? You did it! You graduated! You have some new letters after your name. You. Are. DONE. Take some time to celebrate!
You finally have the job that you have been working for. You’ve earned 2 degrees, completed 6 years (at least) of school, provided 400 hours of therapy, and passed the praxis and comps. You applied for jobs, sat through awkward interviews, made tough decisions, but now you have a job – a job that you thought would be amazing, perfect, dreamy. But now… maybe it’s not seeming so dreamy? Starting a new job can be stressful, scary, and strange. You were so excited to start… but now maybe you’re questioning if you chose the right setting, population, maybe even city to work in. These are all completely normal feelings, feelings that will soon go away. Hang in there, your dream job will get dreamy again! Here are some tips to help you through your first few months as a CF –
1. You don’t have to know everything
You just finished grad school. At this point, you have taken countless exams, sat through hundreds of lectures,passed the praxis, and maybe even written a research paper. You feel like you have to have learned everything by now.. but then you have your first day as an SLP and you have no idea what you’re doing. You know what? This is OKAY. A lot of the information that you have learned while in school won’t click until you apply it. The most seasoned SLPs still have to continue learning and researching, that’s why they require CEUs! I find myself googling ALL. THE. TIME. Sometimes I am completely lost, I have literally googled “how to do speech therapy” before. Don’t feel bad about not knowing something, even if you feel like it’s something you definitely should know. Our field involves SO much and truly you will never stop learning.
2. It’s okay to mess up
Once you have that long list of letters after your name, it’s easy to assume that you’ll be a perfect SLP. You’ve provided hundreds of hours of treatment during grad school to clients of all sorts of diagnoses, you should know how to treat anybody, right? WRONG! You might have figured this out by now, but literally every. single. client. is different. Even if they have the exam same age, gender, DOB, diagnoses, goals, etc. – they will still be different! You can’t possibly always know how to treat a client, and if you mess up? It is okay. If you walk into a session with a kid and are prepared to work on formulating sentences and answering questions, but you find out that they are actually non-verbal.. yikes. That sucks, but you’ll recover. And you know what?You’ll do better next time. My motto? “fake it ’til ya make it.” Acting like you know what you’re doing will take you a lot farther than you think.
3. Don’t overwork yourself
As you already know, providing treatment to our clients is only half of the work SLPs do everyday. Depending on what setting you’re in, you could have IEPs, weekly team meetings, evaluation reports, SOAP notes – and not to mention all the planning. For most of us, we aren’t even compensating for this extra work and we aren’t allotted time to complete documentation either. What does this mean? Working overtime. Whether you get to the office early or bring work home, you gotta complete it. But – make sure you aren’t over working yourself. Create ONE therapy plan that can be adjusted to meet the needs of all of your clients. Find materials that can be reused over and over to save time in the future. Utilize your down time, and learn to say no. Learn to stand up for yourself when the demands are too high. So many SLPs strive to always have perfect sessions which leads to tons and tons of planning, but sometimes its okay to just wing it!!!
4. Schedule some you time
As mentioned in Tip #3, us speechies have got a lot on our plate. From therapy to staff meetings to IEPs to documentation to planning. Most SLPs would use the term “drowning” when describing how they currently feel. So you are not alone in this feeling! But – no matter how much you have on your plate, it is essential to schedule in some “you time.” Maybe choose Sunday evening or Friday morning to catch up on everything from the week before, or if you like to do a little everyday that works too. But you have to pick some time to NOT work. Give yourself some nights off, especially on the weekend. Personally, I do not do anything work related starting Friday at noon until Sunday at noon. I know I am privileged in my job and don’t have to work Fridays, so your “you time” schedule might be different, but no matter when it is you have to plan it. Spend some time with your friends, practicing a hobby, or even just sitting on your couch watching TikToks. But please do not feel like your CF should be spent working 24/7.
5. Be patient with yourself
I remember when I first started my CF, my supervisor told me, “You always seem so stressed out and lost! The other CF that I am supervising really just has it all together. You should talk to her!” and let me tell you – this DEVASTATED me. I thought that I was at least acting like I had it together, I couldn’t believe it was that obvious that I was so stressed out. It wasn’t until later when I was chatting with the other CF she mentored… she had told her the exact same thing! She told her that I was the one that had it all together… LOL! I was shocked to find out that the thing that had me freaking out for weeks was just a “teaching strategy” (or whatever you want to call that). I learned in that moment that no matter if you are the “stressed CF” or the “calm CF,” it is fine. Be patient with yourself. You will figure out the ins and outs of your new office before you know it. You will make friends at work and get to know your clients.You will figure out your documentation system and learn how insurance approvals work. Be patient, it may take time but you will get there.
— Courtney B SLP