3 years

That's all it took to start and finish graduate school. Wait...that's all it took? It took a heck of a lot of sacrificing other fun things to stay home and study or get up early to go to practicum or write a research paper...

Yesterday, I graduated.

It feels good to write that. I'm going to write it again.

I graduated!!!

At the ceremony, the speaker shared an anecdote that I can't recall the details of really (I'm a good listener), but the point was that in order to earn a master's or professional degree, you basically have to be in school half your life. Well, let's see... 12 years of high school + 4 years of undergrad + 3 years of grad school = 19 years. I'm 29. I've spent more than half my life in school! Yikes! No wonder I like making lists and crossing things off when I'm done with them and reading books and watching documentaries. I like learning.

However, I am very much ready to be done with school. And I look forward to learning on my own time (in continuing ed classes and in the comfort of my own home while eating popcorn and drinking Cherry Coke Zeros).

You know who else is ready to be done with school? This guy - he graduates on May 22.

The only thing I have left to do before I am officially done with school is survive my oral defense on Monday morning (10 a.m. CST). Basically, I get to meet with a panel of three professors who can ask me anything. They might ask questions to clarify some of my answers from my written exam I had a month ago, or they could just ask whatever they want related to speech, language, hearing, swallowing, cognition...stuff like that.

 Thanks, Mom, for coming to my graduation and taking us
out for deeeeelicious Afghani food!

So Monday morning, I would appreciate any good vibes you could send my way!

Thanks!

And in case you're wondering, you can now call me master. :) Just kidding... But if you really want to know, my official title now will be Heidi Lastname, MA, CF-SLP (which stands for Master of Arts, Clinical Fellow-Speech-Language Pathologist). After nine months of being a clinical fellow, I'll be a CCC-SLP, which stands for Certificate of Clinical Competence-Speech-Language Pathologist.