Bad News

This is a partial transcript of an email I recently received from Erin Maloff, a student at Vanderbilt University.

Hi Ashley,

It sounds like you are interested in the audiology field (as opposed to neuroscience or engineering), so pursuing a doctoral degree in this area makes sense. I would strongly encourage you to consider applying for a program that combines the AuD and PhD degrees for a couple of reasons. First, you will gain a much better sense of the issues and areas of research within the field if you have some clinical experience. Even if you don't have any interest in seeing patients in the clinic, having some clinical experience will help you to develop ideas and frame out designs for projects much better. Second, holding both degrees will make you much more marketable when it comes time to find a job. Most of the jobs and/or post-doc positions I found in the field of audiology clearly stated that it was preferable to have some clinical experience and to hold a state license to practice (this is not always the case for other fields like neuroscience). One person I interviewed with just recently for a job in a university told me that doing research in her lab would be much more difficult for someone who did not have any clinical experience. Many audiology professors I interviewed with for jobs in university settings have had some sort of clinical experience. You mentioned a potential interest in working for hearing aid or cochlear implant companies. I have several friends with Ph.D. degrees who work for these type of companies and I know that they were hired in part because of the clinical experience they had before they started working toward their PhDs, even though they were hired for primarily research-based positions.

THIS DOES NOT SIT WELL.
Essentially, what this means is that New Zealand is out of the question unless I can work it in during my internship year. The program at UCanterbury only has a Master's in audiology because that's the requirement for certification there. The requirement here is a four-year AuD. In order to pay back the copious amount of student loans I'll have upon my graduation, I'm going to need lots of credentials on my side.

So, with tears in my eyes, I begin my search for another program.
My top choices are University of Iowa, Vanderbilt, and University of Texas at Dallas.