During her senior year at Upper Dublin High School in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, Amanda Kaufmann, MS ‘17, had the opportunity to participate in a Community Study program, where she could shadow someone in the community.
She decided to observe a speech-language pathologist at a local elementary school and absolutely loved the experience. From that point on, her goal was to become a speech-language pathologist (SLP).
That journey continued at the University of Pittsburgh, where she would graduate with a degree in Communication Science and Disorders. While at Pitt though, Kaufmann thought the class sizes were too big for her tastes and it was difficult to establish meaningful relationships with professors because of the overwhelming number of students they had to serve.
Those aspects definitely came into play when she was searching for a graduate school. She wanted to stay in the Philadelphia area at the time and had learned Salus University had a positive reputation focusing on health professions.
“The intimacy of the small environment and really getting to know and have relationships with the faculty and the Salus community was important,” said Kaufmann, who is now living in Santa Monica, California, working as a speech therapist for a private practice. “When I went for the interview and the tour, I just knew it was where I wanted to be. It was exactly the environment I wanted to be in to start my profession.”
Kaufmann said one of the biggest advantages of being in the University’s SLP program was the exposure to all of the training at the Speech-Language Institute (SLI), the program’s on-campus clinical facility.
“I learned so much in that program and it laid the groundwork and gave me an excellent foundation for my adult and pediatric externships,” she said. “I used all of that information and all that training and I brought that to my job.”
Although she wanted to stay closer to home for grad school, after graduation, Kaufmann was ready to expand her geographical preferences as a professional, and landed her first job in New York City. There she worked at a skilled nursing facility and rehabilitation center, working with adult patients who had swallowing issues after suffering strokes.
The experience of working with adults was good for Kaufmann and she thought she might stay in New York City for a long time. But she decided she eventually wanted to work with children and have the flexibility of being in a private practice. “My goal leaving grad school was that I wanted to get experience in both spectrums,” she said.
Love entered the equation while Kaufmann was in New York City, and she met her boyfriend Daniel Goldring, who eventually became her fiancée. He had already accepted a job on the West Coast, and the couple did the long-distance relationship thing for a while before Kaufmann decided to move to the Los Angeles area.
“I didn’t expect that to happen. I moved to New York thinking I would be there forever and nothing would take me out of New York. Now, I’m like I’m never leaving L.A. I love it here,” she said.
Because of the COVID-19 restrictions, she’s currently working with children doing teletherapy four days a week at the private practice.
Her pre-pandemic activities included exploring the restaurant scene, which is limited now. But the mild Southern California weather has enabled her and Daniel to go to the beach on hikes. She’s also taken up cooking and has an Australian Labradoodle named Milo. This is all in addition to already making plans for her professional future.
“I’m in the beginning of the process of starting my own practice right now,” she said. “Hopefully within a year I can go off completely on my own and just do that going forward.”
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