I remember a conversation that I once had with my dad several years ago. We were on our way to pick up my brother from his speech therapist's house. It was the summer, so they were meeting at her house for their sessions. Out of no where, I said, "I think I want to be a speech therapist." He seemed somewhat surprised, asking me why I had decided this. To this day I don't know why I said that. It just came out without even thinking about it. By the time I started college, I had forgotten all about that incident. I actually began college as an accounting major. This was basically because I loved math. However, it didn't take long for me to decide that I didn't want to crunch numbers from 9-5pm every Monday through Friday for the rest of my life. So, towards the middle of my first semester at Marshall, I went to the library one evening to look for some inspiration as to what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I spent several hours reading through the Occupational Outlook Handbook. While I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do, I knew that I wanted to work with children and that I wanted to do something to make a difference in someone's life. After reading about a variety of occupations, I came to the section titled, Speech-Language Pathologists and Audiologists. After reading about this profession, I decided that this was what I wanted to do. It was perfect! I could work with children and make a difference in their lives by helping them to better communicate and possibly helping to improve their self-esteems. I remembered what a difference speech therapy had made on my brother's self-esteem, and I wanted to have the opportunity to do the same for someone else. It was at this moment that I recalled the conversation that I had had with my father so long ago. While I still didn't know the reasons behind my statement, I remembered how it just felt so natural, so right for me. I feel the same way to this day. I know that this is what I was meant to do.

While this major has definitely been challenging and will probably become even more challenging as I progress, I know that I made the right decision when entering this major. All of the hard work will eventually pay off and will hopefully make me a better person as well as a creditable speech pathologist.