The purpose of this qualitative group study is to survey communication science and disorders- speech- language pathology (SLP) second-year graduate students in the United States on their overall opinions of the balance between their graduate studies and their perceived quality of life. The need for this type of design is evident in that limited research is available pertaining to the quality of life of graduate students in the specific field of speech-language pathology while this information seems readily available for comparable fields of study. Exploration into the areas of SLP graduate students' quality of life (i.e. program expectations, stress levels, recreational activities, family life, etc.) will provide information and themes present across training institutions throughout the United States. This qualitative data on the attitudes, outlooks and opinions of current second year graduate students in speech-language pathology should provide novel information potentially of use to future students, faculty and other related professionals. The subjects in this study include about 230 targeted second- year graduate students in mid- sized (i.e. 20- 35 students) speech-language pathology graduate programs within mid- sized (15,000- 30,000 total enrollment) universities in the different regions of the United States.