I finished a three week course today. It was Audiologic Rehabilitation. It was my third audiology course in a row. The other two were undergraduate courses, but this graduate course was almost as bad. The teacher, a very nice man, was so dry that it was hard to pay attention 3 hours a day. Of course, halfway through the course he started letting us out an hour or two early. We didn’t mind, but I was paying for all that time.
We had three projects in the class. For the first one, we had to wear ear plugs for 4 hours and be in public one of those hours. This was to show us what it was like to have a hearing loss. The second project was to watch a TV show or video without sound on to see how much we understood. And we couldn’t use closed-captioning. This was to show us what it was like to not be able to hear. The third (and worst) project was to pretend to be deaf for 4 hours and be in public one of those hours. We could not communicate verbally. This was to show us what it was like to be deaf. After each of these projects we discussed them in class. It was interested how many people made comments like “it was so depressing” and “it really opened my eyes to what it’s like for a deaf person.” I didn’t feel that way at all, especially when I was pretending to be deaf. It’s really hard to pretend you can’t hear anything when you really can. I don’t care much for simulation projects.
Our final exam was today. It was open-book and open-notes. That sounds good, right? Well, my notes were 30 pages at 10pt font. The book was over 300 pages. It was also on videos, articles, guest lectures, group presentations, etc. We got a vague study guide (with the disclaimer that there could be questions on the test that aren’t on the study guide) and every time we tried to ask the teacher a question about a topic on the test or what to study we got a vague, “There might be a question about that.” It was 115 questions in 120 minutes. Now, most of us were unsure of what to study. I was afraid I would study the wrong things if I picked what seemed important, so I just went through my notes a few times and looked through the book. Some of the test questions were easy. Some I found in the notes or book. Some I remembered from my previous audiology classes (although I don’t remember them being mentioned in this class). Others I had no clue about (as did some of the others I talked to). For instance, one question asked how many hair cells we are born with in the cochlea. Another asked how many fibers are in the VIII cranial nerve. Even if this information had been provided in class (I’m not sure it was) and I had been paying attention (which I probably wasn’t), I wouldn’t have written it down. To me, that is extra tidbits, not something important for a speech pathologist to know. Another question none of us remembered in class (about a study on birds), but the teacher of our other class talked about it this morning! Hopefully we guessed right. The exam (and notes) was also full of spelling and grammar mistakes. That made it a little difficult to understand the question. I wish I had had enough time to count them up.
So, today was the end of my audiology class career (I hope!). I must say I am very glad. It was definitely not my favorite subject and the teachers I had were less than spectacular. Next week begins planning for clinic….