Introducing Dr. Tessitore

Dr. Tessitore introduces herself and explains how she ended up in the field of audiology!
Transcription:
Hi, my name is Dr. Tessitore and today I am going to tell you how I got into the field of audiology. So, I started my college career at Penn State doing undergraduate work in psychology. I did that because I liked to see how people behaved and why people did what they did. My senior year, I ended up having all my electives left and I ended up taking sign language classes. Now, I had been exposed to sign language whenever I was in elementary school. My mother taught me finger spelling and so the two of us would communicate back and forth signing words to each other, and I really liked that. So, when I took sign language classes at Penn State, I enjoyed that a lot. I ended up being in a club, we had silent dinners, and I just really liked that.
When I finished my tenure at Penn State, I had gotten accepted into the School of Psychology for the PhD work at Penn State, and I decided to turn it down, because I wasn’t sure that was the road I wanted to take. So, I took a year off from school and during that time I volunteered at the Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf. I ended up volunteering in an after-school program, and I got to teach kids and play after school games with kids. I also worked there at a center on deafness, which is for people outside of high school, who wanted to learn career skills like writing resumes and interviewing. In that program, I really honed my sign language skills. I met people my age, I started hanging out with them, and that’s when I knew I wanted my career to somehow involve sign language.
So, after thinking about it, I applied to some deaf education programs and ended up at the University of Pittsburgh. Pitt was one of the few schools that offered deaf education in Pennsylvania, so that’s how I got there. It ended up that my first class was an undergraduate audiology course. Now, I didn’t want to take that class. I didn’t know what audiology was, it was an undergraduate class, and I was a grad student, but I ended up going and I fell in love with that class! That weekend I went out of state for Labor Day, and I had homework in my deaf education classes. I didn’t have any homework in my audiology classes, but I ended up taking my audiology textbook because I was intrigued with the subject. I started volunteering at the children’s hospital and that’s when I fell in love with Audiology! I knew that I wanted to work in a healthcare profession, and I also wanted to use sign language, which I knew I could in this field. That’s how I got to where I am! So, I’m really excited to make my new home in North Carolina, and get to know people, and really work here at Now Hear This®. I look forward to meeting you!

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Welcome Dr. Tessitore! I look forward to meeting you.