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When Alexandra Kistner, MS ‘17, was a high school junior in Southampton, Pennsylvania, she did a project on speech therapy and realized what she wanted to pursue as a career. She attended Temple University for Communication Sciences where she worked hard to get her degree.
Getting into grad school was an arduous process. Unfortunately, most grad schools did not consider the whole student and the experiences they bring with them. What she found when she interviewed for a spot in the early days of the then-new Speech-Language Pathology (SLP) program at Salus University was both encouraging and refreshing.
“The fact that it was a new program was attractive, but the big thing was it was very people friendly,” said Kistner. “When I went for my initial interview, I just felt like Salus was about giving everybody a chance. They were not just looking at me on paper, they were looking at the whole person.”
It was during this process that she believes she was able to demonstrate her knowledge, professionalism, and was able to articulate her goals for the future if accepted into the program. “I felt Salus got to know me versus my paper application,” she said.
Accepted into the inaugural SLP class in 2015, Kistner did not know exactly what she was getting herself into, but she knew it was an exciting time.
“There’s something to say about being the first at something,” she said. “Everything was always done with care and it was always obvious they wanted us to succeed because then the program would succeed. It was challenging, there were tough times, but it was rewarding.”
Throughout her grad school experience, Salus offered a good combination of in-class discussion and readings, modeling instructional and assessment techniques by supervisors, and promoting her to achieve her full potential in figuring out therapy strategies on her own in the program’s on-campus clinical facility, the Speech-Language Institute, and during fieldwork activities. This, Kistner said, prepared her to pursue a career in SLP.
“Salus gave us many practical experiences,” she said. “The instructors made sure we had opportunities to observe treatments, provided us feedback, and offered us opportunities to ask professionals in those settings questions.”
That practical experience, preparedness, and clinical training set Kistner up for success. Two months before her graduation, she applied and was hired as a speech therapist in the extended school year program of the Central Bucks School District in suburban Philadelphia. That was followed by a full-time opening in the fall of the coming school year, for which Kistner applied and was hired. She has been with the Central Bucks School District ever since.
She has worked in a variety of settings in Central Bucks and has been able to utilize many of the skills and strategies she learned while at Salus, such as administering assessments, developing articulation plans, managing Augmented and Alternative Communication (AAC) devices, and developing therapeutic communication plans/lessons.
Not only was Salus the place where Kistner earned her master’s degree, but when she and her husband Max Weintraub had to postpone their wedding due to the pandemic, their officiant met them under the Salus gazebo and performed the wedding ceremony.
Kistner was fortunate as Central Bucks was one of the first districts to get back to in-person learning in September 2020. She is thrilled to be sharing her skills and excited about learning new ones every day. Kistner loves working in the school environment and does not see herself leaving anytime soon.
“I’m incredibly pleased with everything that I got out of Salus. It’s a rigorous and vibrant program that has set me up for the successful career I have now,” she said.
