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Standing at one of her best friend’s weddings this fall, Megan Schafer, MS ‘20 would have never guessed that the Speech-Language Pathology (SLP) department at Salus would afford her not only a top-tier education, but lifelong friendships too.
Although Schafer’s journey to Salus and the SLP department was a complicated one, she reflects on her experience fondly, confident she ended up in the right place.
While playing a Division I sport and working as a soccer coach during her time at Penn State, she found a connection between her love of helping others through coaching, and her desire to work in healthcare After changing her major a few times, she discovered the SLP profession during her research of potential healthcare-related career paths, took a leap of faith, and pursued it.
That leap landed her in the Salus SLP Class of 2020 cohort, where she enjoyed her experience both didactically and clinically with her two externships and supportive faculty, but also outside the classroom, where she met three of her best friends.
Those best friends are Kara Pinero, MS ‘20, Jaclyn Kolano, MS ‘20 and Nicole Duffy, MS ‘20, and although they no longer spend all day in class together, they have remained connected during the transition into their professional careers. In fact, they were recently in each other’s weddings.
“It’s really cool that Salus brought us all together and now we are going through these major life milestones together, new jobs, weddings, etc.,” she said. “It’s also cool to hear and see how other people from Salus are doing and what great things they are accomplishing. We were all just babies in 2018 and now we are all doing crazy life things.”
Schafer currently works as a full-time employee in the Central Bucks School District, placed in two elementary schools and a middle school, traveling between buildings and working with her caseload.
“Unfortunately my spring externship was cut short due to COVID, I was originally placed in the Pennsbury School District,” she said. “And, even though I had a limited amount of time in a school setting, I knew that was where I wanted to be when I graduated.”
Schafer said this past year has been a “whirlwind” with weddings, new jobs and new caseloads, she has enjoyed her experience in the Central Bucks School District thus far and is excited to continue learning and growing in the SLP profession.
