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[quote=Anonymous]At that phase in your career you need to be more focused on who you’re working with and what you can learn from them, not the salary. You need to be gaining experience with individuals of different ages, with different learning histories, you need to interact with different families, learn to handle difficult situations, etc. There’s a LOT to learn that they don’t teach you in graduate school.

I say this with kindness, but you don’t know what you don’t know. If you are frightened or put off by a diaper change in a job working with children then you aren’t experienced enough for that particular job. My advice is not to work in a place where you’ll be on your own. Even with a masters degree you aren’t considered an expert in this field yet by any means. You need to have other more experienced professionals (other SLPs as well as OT, PT, BCBA, Physicians, school personnel, etc) that you can learn from. A school, home-based traveling EI program, joint practice, or university might be a good start.

The people you work with are much more important than the salary at least for the first 5-10 years after graduate school. Focus on continuing to learn, surround yourself with people more experienced than you, get a variety of experiences with different clients, and in 10 years you will be able to work anywhere you want and practically name your salary. It’s also a good time to job hop a bit (like every 2-3 years or when opportunity knocks) and find your niche in the field.

My first job out of grad school paid $25 an hour and I had horrible commutes but I focused on learning what I didn’t yet know. Things like interacting with parents and other professionals, writing reports, conducting assessments, IEP process, etc take years of experience to master and I’m still working on some of these. 15+ years later I can charge insurance at least $125/hr for essentially that same job I made $25 for and privately people would pay much more especially for things like assessments. I can also hand pick my clients and choose my own hours- that’s almost better than making more money. It’s not because I have an M.S. degree though, it’s because I have that and years of varying experiences that I gained because I focused on always learning something from someone along the way.

Change your focus OP.[/quote]

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