▲ 5 r/slpGradSchool
Mercy University/College Experience
I went to Mercy University for undergrad back when it used to be called Mercy College. I had a terrible experience and almost didn’t become an SLP due to my experience at Mercy. I felt like it is time for me to make my own post detailing my experience at Mercy and why I recommend Not going there for undergrad/graduate school.
- Obvious favoritism from the professors – The professors made it obvious which students they liked the most. I even had a professor give two students gifts in front of the whole class and not address why she is doing so to the class. Since they don’t have a large faculty, I had the same professors for numerous classes which also made it harder to get a letter of recommendation because they didn’t like me due to (to quote a professor) “you don’t smile enough and avoid making eye contact with me during class.”
- Ableism – I needed testing accommodations and the professors were judgmental because I needed them and would point out ways I was “different” from my classmates. It’s funny how the professors claim to want to help people with disabilities but never extend the help to their own students. I was able to be a student clinician during undergrad as I had earned a high enough grade in my classes (the other half who didn’t had to observe other student clinicians), so I worked in a group setting with other student clinicians. They got short notes stating “great job! Love how you worked with (client name)!” While on the same piece of paper that my classmates could see, I would receive notes saying that I “did not appear confident enough, did not smile enough, your voice is too monotone and that you need to show more enthusiasm through your voice, and that you need to follow your classmates’ examples on how to act as a student clinician.” While I was in a meeting with a professor over my midterm grade as a student clinician, another professor was called into our meeting and I was scolded for not taking criticism well (I was crying and obviously upset) and that she does not see a future for me as an SLP.
- Unwelcoming learning environment – Nobody could ask the professors for help during office hours and if anybody tried, the professors would reprimand them for not understanding the material and how are they supposed to become an SLP if they’re already struggling with something so simple? One of the classes was common for people to retake due to being unable to ask for help outside of class and as it was a prerequisite class, people felt obligated to retake it to not stay with a C or lower grade. The professor would refer to the people retaking the class as her “veterans” and would frequently ask them questions during class.
- Linguistic discrimination – Classmates would get called out by professors for producing words (such as “ask” as “aks”) in non-standard English dialect and told that they needed to speak “normal” in order to become an SLP. In fact, one of my professors in graduate school shared with me that when she went to Mercy, she was forced to receive speech therapy for “accent modification” because of her Spanish accent when she spoke English.
- Near graduation, the majority of my classmates were discouraged about becoming SLPs and decided to follow a different career path or take a gap year. Only a third of my classmates (coincidentally it was the professors’ favorites) expressed interest in immediately applying to graduate schools.
TLDR: Mercy College/University is a place where you are expected to figure out class material on your own, the professors make their favoritism towards certain students obvious, and an unwelcome school to people with disabilities and dialects/accents.
u/elethmixer — 10 hours ago