My name is Carlos Montes-Aviles. I’m a speech and language pathologist. I’ve been in my career for about 11 years now. I worked in the schools for a couple years and then after a couple years in the schools, I decided to open my own private practice, and now we have been open for about 5 years. We work with kids who are mainly bilingual. A lot of them only speak Spanish actually, so we do therapy in both English and Spanish.

What led you to choose this career path? 

That’s a good question. Well you know I was actually interested in doing graphic design, I got my associates in arts. But then, because I stutter I decided to get therapy while I was in college for my speech and I noticed that it made a big improvement in my speech and in my life. So, I was like I’m going to give it a shot, I’m going to see if I like that field enough and I did, I liked it a lot. So, I decided to get my bachelors in speech and language pathology and also my masters as well.

What made you want to further your education? 

I would say different things, but one of those being that I was always interested in higher education. But because I came from an immigrant family, I wasn’t sure what possibilities were out there for me. I just wasn’t sure. And then because of the challenges I had, one of them being the language and also just my speech as well because I stutter, I didn’t think I would have enough opportunities to actually get a degree or do much in life you know, but then again with the speech therapy that I received I was able to see, ‘hey you know I can probably do more things that I what I think I am capable of doing’. But also you know just being in different jobs, I didn’t like most jobs that I had and I was like I need to go to college, that’s just what I have to do. And I did it, and I was very happy that I did because it’s been great. I loved college and I love what I do as well. 

What advice would you like to give to first-gen students? 

I would say, don’t be afraid to choose a career that may take a masters or a doctorate degree because time goes really fast, so I would say don’t set any limits on yourself because we are capable of doing more than what we think we are able to. And also getting involved, join a club. That made a big difference in my experience in college. You know just being able to meet other Hispanic students, like in HALO or when I was getting my associates, I also joined art club, so I met other people who were also interested in the arts and stuff, so I really enjoyed that as well. It just made my college experience much more fun, being able to be in those clubs and meeting people that had some of those same interests that I did. 

What was an obstacle you overcame to reach your goals and how did you do it? 

Financially I would say, I had to work full-time throughout my college. So I would go to college during the day and I would work in the evening, would work in the night time. I had to work a lot and I know that there are a lot of students that do the same, so that’s an obstacle that is often there. But besides that, again just my speech you know because at the time, I was stuttering a lot and I wasn’t sure how I would achieve what I wanted to achieve. But as I improved with my speech, I was able to I would say beat the challenge of stuttering, in a way, because I still stutter. But now I’m comfortable with it and I’m okay speaking pretty much anywhere. So that was a big challenge I was able to beat.

What should first-gen students know about getting a Master’s degree?

Undergrad I feel like you know it’s a good experience, of course but in the masters level I feel like a little bit more interesting in a way. It’s more interesting because you are mainly focused in the field that you are trying to get more knowledge in. So, I really enjoyed just being able to have courses in speech and language pathology, in audiology. So, it just made things more interesting for me, you know. The class size was also smaller so you got to meet a lot of the people within your class. It does take a lot of work, a lot of time to get your stuff done at the Master’s level. But its a good challenge, I really enjoyed it. You know at the Master’s level you may not have the same work and life balance as you want, but I think it’s one of the things that you need to sacrifice to meet your goal. At the Master’s level, I was working full-time, I was a full-time student, I was a full-time dad so you know just a lot of things going on. But again, if you know that your goal is to finish, if your goal is to get a career, then you know you’re going to get it done for sure. So work hard, and get it done.

What resources do you recommend? 

I would say that the main resource that a lot of students can use is that if you’re interested in a field, interested in a career, get in touch with people that are in the field you know. Especially if it is someone with your same background, that helps a lot. Get out there and find people that can motivate you and help you achieve your goal.