A question I often get is, “How did you become an audiologist?” When I was growing up, I never imagined myself working in the health care arena. In college, I could not even see beyond the next semester! When I finally declared a major, I chose Education, only because that is what my mother did. She was exceptionally calm – an angel on earth. I, however, was a bit more jagged and soon realized Elementary Education was NOT my passion. 
For some odd reason, my roommate suggested I take Speech and Hearing Intro and it turned out to be a more interesting than Education (still no passion there). So, I changed my major to Speech Pathology and Audiology and quickly fell in love with Phonetics – probably because I write phonetically. (I am not the greatest speller in the world.) But then I took Articulation Therapy and quickly realized there was no way I could do speech therapy the rest of my life.
Fortunately, I did find the math and physics of Audiology interesting, so I changed again, to the Audiology track. Unfortunately, in graduate school, I came to the conclusion that hearing aids were “evil incarnate.” It was the early ’90s, when digital technology was just emerging. Hearing aid choices and options were initially very limited and we did not have the fine tuning ability we have now.
In my first job, my employer bought a computer just to program hearing aids, which in itself was quite revolutionary. As the technology progressed and hearing aids actually improved, I eventually realized I had a gift for fitting adults. Although I do still occasionally get frustrated, I simply love selecting and fitting the right devices that will change someone’s life so dramatically!
These are several of the important crossroads in my life, where the fork I took brought me to where I am today. Sometimes I wonder if maybe Providence provided a helping hand. Of course, I continue to reach new crossroads in my personal and professional life, but I have learned to take a little time to step back and evaluate the situation before making any big decisions. The future is being determined as we speak and this is just a reminder to keep that in mind at your crossroads today.
The “health care arena”? I did not see myself working in any area of healthcare. But in college I had several eye opening experiences, one watching an child in a pediatric ICU and how all of the professionals were enriched by this small bundle of joy and that called to me. Although my choices brought me to working with adults I still am enriched everyday by my experiences.