Big Kid School

This week marks my fourth week in the Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) program. I still can't believe I'm back in school. I've already forgotten what it's like to come home, veg out, and not have schoolwork to do or at least think about.

The program is time-consuming (therefore, exhausting), but I am really glad I am pursuing it. We are still learning about theories, concepts, and terminology, but just about everything that I have learned thus far has already been relevant to my work with my autism kiddos.

I have to say that I was a little bit intimidated by my cohort since the majority of them are psychologists, and applied behavior analysis (ABA) has traditionally been their fieldwork. I didn't think my background in speech-language pathology would be sufficient, but with every class, I continue to realize that I really learned a lot from my grad program.

My current classmates are all very sweet and talkative...but just not of the same caliber as my SLP girls. I really miss my grad school classmates. We had a GREAT (and intelligent) bunch.

I can't say I'm at the top of the class, but I definitely am still a huge nerd and trying to be at the top. I need a B in all of my courses, but I keep studying my butt off so I can get good grades on the weekly quizzes (10, 9, and 10 out of 10 so far). There are two main reasons why I'm still a huge nerd.

First and foremost, it's the thought of taking that huge BCBA exam at the end of the program that motivates me to study hard. A sub-reason and fear is that I won't get my ridonkulous amount of clinical hours done in time for the first available exam after I complete my coursework, and all the textbook knowledge will flood out of my brain by the next round of exams. My memory just isn't so great.

Secondly, I feel like I have to represent for SLPs b/c there is a huge "turf battle" going on between psychologists and SLPs over ABA. That's ironic to me b/c 1) are we forgetting that we are in this field for the kids? and 2) aren't we all supposed to be on the same team?

Re: (concocted personal) turf battle, I've caught inconsistent vibes from the prof over the 4 weeks. I am always nervous when I first meet psychologists -- since I'm all about me, I instantly think that psychologists are analyzing me from the second we meet. So last week at the beginning of a supervision meeting, I can't remember what (antecedent stimuli) I said (certainly nothing offensive, or so I think) but the instructor said in his huffy-puffy way, "Oh, you don't want me to analyze your behavior." I nervously laughed it off and wondered, what the deuce does he mean? Then I stopped laughing and said, "Actually, I do. What do you mean?" He either ignored me or didn't hear me (I suspect the former). For the entire 2.5 hour meeting, he didn't look at me even once, despite me sitting across from him. That was weird, considering I feel like he is always looking at me in class (possibly b/c I sit in the way corner to hide my compulsive e-mail and text messaging checking).

Then last night, I finished the quiz in less than 10 minutes, which is rare. In all my years as a student, I have always been one of the last to finish exams. When I came back into the room, he said to everyone (and because I think everything is all about me, I felt like it was directed towards me), "Some of you are rushing through the quizzes and making mistakes. You need so slow down!" I was like, great, did I get less than a 10? (Especially since I was arrogant enough to finish the quiz, walk out, and text BF that I think I got a 10/10. Mind you, I am rarely ever that confident about grades.)

However, later on in lecture, he divided us into trios and my trio presented first on the text that we had just read. That sucked b/c I hate giving presentations regardless of whether I am prepared. It sucked even more b/c it was totally an improvised presentation on something I just read. It also sucked because I got left with the hardest concept to explain to the class (my two partners sounded like they were getting into a verbal cat fight, disagreeing about that concept...so they left it to me), but I went up there, blushed through the whole thing, and then blushed some more when the instructor said, "Wow, that was an excellent presentation."

Today at the meeting, he said to the previous cohort that I am one of the best students in my cohort. I was like, yeah! One for the SLPs! (And he commented again that I gave a good presentation. Two for the SLPs!)

But don't be impressed -- there are only 9 of us in this cohort (the previous one started off with ~50 and dropped down to 15).