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Personal Observations and Helpful Hints for Those Considering Grad School in USM's Speech Path Department Working in the USM Speech and Hearing Clinic: If you have Mr. Alexander as a clinic supervisor, appropriate clinic attire means: no open-toed shoes, no backless shirts, no skirts above the knee, no low-cut blouses, no tank tops, no bright lipstick, no dark nail polish, no dangly earrings, no shorts, no tee shirts, no sleeveless tops, no bare legs, etc., etc. In other words, just dress yourself in your snazziest burlap sack and you'll be fine. (Note: Make sure it extends below the knee.)       Bronwen's Law of Clinic Certainties: When you botch a therapeutic method in the clinic, there are guaranteed to be several eager undergraduates watching through the observation window (and scribbling notes). Remedy: Just tell them it's a new technique. They'll never know the difference. When you really, really botch a therapeutic method in the clinic, your supervisor, the department chair, the clinic coordinator, the client's parent/spouse/significant other AND several eager undergraduates are all guaranteed to be watching through the observation window. Remedy: Try to surreptitiously exit the building through a back door immediately following your session. Dr. Cloud: When discussing any matter of consequence with Dr. Cloud, try to frame your comments in terms of baseball analogies. This will ensure he understands. If you need to win brownie points with Dr. Cloud, you can always say something like, "I just heard your high school baseball team won the state championship. Wow! Tell me about that!" Be sure to allow at least two hours if you employ this technique. In Dr. Cloud's classes, always be certain to pronounce larynx correctly. Correct: lar -inx (rhymes with sphinx). Incorrect: lar -niks. This is crucial. The same is true for the spelling of "copious," as in Copious secretions are symptomatic of dysphagia. (You will quickly become very familiar with the phrase, "copious secretions.") Dr. Muma: In Dr. Muma's classes, any exam question that makes reference to one of his articles (i.e. "According to Muma, 2002, blah, blah, blah…") will ALWAYS be true. There's really no need to read beyond the attribution. Dr. Saniga: If Dr. Saniga indicates that an exam will be multiple choice, he really means that it will be multiple choice, discussion, true/false, fill in the blank, short answer, matching, essay, and pantomime. Misc.: If you are called upon to teach an undergraduate class, recognize that any comment you make or illustration you use - no matter how benign - could be interpreted as a sexual innuendo, and therefore reason for smirking and giggling on the part of the class. (God forbid you will be asked to teach a class on swallowing disorders.) Hint: Avoid overhead transparencies depicting vertical diagrams of the cricopharyngeal juncture. Trust me on this.