Student Speak Out November 2021

Tiffany's experience working as an AHA Becoming an AHA

“I began working as an Allied Health Assistant two days per week at the beginning of 2021 as I started my Masters of Speech Language Pathology at the University of Sydney. I saw it as an opportunity to start my career as an SLP without having to wait for graduation to come around. Prior to finding my current role, I decided to email every speech clinic in my city to check if they needed an enthusiastic student who wanted to learn as much as possible from qualified speech pathologists. To my surprise, I found a wonderful clinic that was looking for an Allied Health Assistant to help provide therapy to children who had speech and/or language difficulties; a role I didn’t even know existed. I couldn’t believe my luck! “Being able to apply what I learn directly to a clinical setting has been advantageous to my studies, more so than I expected. I get a better understanding of the content being taught at university when I can go into the clinic and put it into practice. Obviously this isn’t always the case as the coursework doesn’t always align, however, most of what I am learning has been solidified in some way by my role as an AHA . For example, last semester as we were learning about phonological disorders, I was able to go into the clinic and

4 Student Speak Out | November 2021