Communication Disorders: Victoria Sci, Junior

I wasn’t too sure what to expect coming back in the fall; we didn’t have any experience with CSD classes doing the hybrid model yet. Things were actually better than I personally was expecting. I took Survey of Speech Disorders, and normally in that course, you get to go into the Robbins Center over in the Union Bank building and observe clients getting treated. But unfortunately, because of COVID, they are primarily doing teletherapy. All of our video observations we had to do through this website, Master Clinician, where speech therapists across the country upload videos of them doing therapy. That was definitely a letdown—especially because one of the really big benefits of Emerson is the fact that we have that on-campus clinic. 

I really learn a lot from watching other people do therapy—my goal down the line is to become a speech language pathologist. Watching these observations online, you’re still learning, you’re still getting experience, but it doesn’t compare at all to being in person. In the Robbins Center, you’re [doing observations] behind a two way mirror; it has a whole different atmosphere from sitting in your dorm room on a computer. I was really looking forward to those. They are probably one of my favorite things about the learning process.