Anchored in Words
“In the beginning was the Word,” reads the Gospel of St. John. And so it was for Sharon Pacuk, who graduated from Vassar College in 2002 with a bachelor’s degree in English
     “I’ve been fascinated by language since I can remember,” admits Sharon, who thinks she may owe that disposition to her mother, a Chinese immigrant who went to great lengths to be seen, and heard, as an American
     In her pursuit to learn more about language, Sharon pursued a master of fine arts in writing at Columbia University. When she graduated in 2007, however, she saw the options ahead of her: teaching in writing workshops; freelancing as a writer but doing part-time odd jobs for a living, including copywriting in the publishing business
      “I wanted my writing to be more involved,” she says firmly. And against the judgment of her Columbia mentor who warned her that her writing would suffer from that choice, “I decided to become the sort of writer anchored in the real world.
     And so it came to pass that Sharon came to Brooklyn College to do a master’s in speech-language pathology, which covers the entire gamut of communication disorders, including stutter, stroke-related lesions, autism, aphasia, and child-hearing disorders
     “This is not a field I saw myself going into, and it is a great change from what I envisioned doing with my life,” she says. And, she adds, Brooklyn College has “the best clinic in the field,” which exposes students to real-life cases and to their communities.
     But she’s still awestruck by how much more science—especially anatomy of the brain—she had to learn. As a speech-language pathologist, you have to chart what is happening in the brain, Sharon explains; you have to do some research and establish conjectures about what’s happening with your patient. You must know where the lesion is, should there be one, and be able to digest clinical reports from physicians and neurologists. “In order to establish a treatment you have to learn what is physiologically wrong with your patients. Then determine a solution, the route you want to take to help them.
     Sharon anticipates it will take her one more year to receive her degree. “I now work at the BC Community Partnership,” a program started by Professor of Psychology Nancy Romer in 1991 to work with youth at risk. “I’m a grant writer for them. I’m also a graduate fellow in the speech program, where I assist the director and teach an undergraduate course in speech.
     “I have one more year to go,” says Sharon, explaining that the master’s is a general degree and the area of specialization depends largely on your internships and fellowships, “and the kinds of patients and externships you get assigned by the clinic’s director.”
     Yet Sharon is not one to give up on her fiction writing. “The kind connection you have with the people you meet is very intense. I’m hoping that it trickles down to my writing and informs my characters and how I see the world.
     Each venture brings thus a new beginning for Sharon, as T.S. Eliot would put it. But in the end, it still is the word.