School Counseling Degree Programs

Becoming a School Counselor is a great career move, if you look at the situation honestly. You do have a certain amount of responsibilities especially if you happen to be the only school counselor at a given institution. Those who work as counselors can really inspire students to be engineers or to develop the next great programs in order to help the country and the community.

The school counselors at a given institution need to be able to guide the students in reaching their goal for the future. They may want to encourage the student to truly reach for the stars, help them find that niche and give them tools they need to achieve it. The job of a counselor can be to make sure that the student knows what kind of resources are out there so they can reach their goals. If a student does not know what kind of resources are out there, then the counselor has not done their job properly. This is a simple fact and thus they have not earned their pay check either.

What are some kinds of resources that are needed for students to be able to attend college? We are talking about scholars from non-profits to doctors and rich business people who leave money to a given school. They want students to have that money made available to them that is why they set up the scholarship to begin with.

The counselor should also be telling students about the different organizations that are out there providing funds; there is no law that says the scholarship you get has to come from one rich person. They can come from a labor union like the United Auto Workers for example. They tend to give scholarships to kids in middle class backgrounds. The kids with the middle and working class backgrounds need the scholarships and they need a quality counselor to work with them so they can obtain these scholarships.

The counselor also needs to be up to date about the kind of federal programs that are currently out there. Having this information can help poor students, who may not otherwise attend, actually attend college. Some people out there are struggling to get to school and they need to know what kind of challenges they face. These same folks really may not want to go to college, but they know this may be their only true chance to advance in the world.

It is so important for a School Counselor to be able to know what kind of programs are out there. It doesn't matter whether you are talking about Perkins Loans or Pell Grants. People need to know what their options are and a school counselor who has taken the necessary college courses in an educational department within a university should be ready with that information. It also might be a good idea for people who want to be guidance counselors to have done some coursework in the law department so they can learn how to read federal legislation.

Day in the Life of a School Counselor

Tell us about how you became a school counselor?
I really like my high school counselor and when I was a senior I asked what I needed to do in order to become one. She talked me into attending school at my local college where I earned my Associates degree in psychology. I later returned a few years later where I earned my degree in counseling.

What do you like best about your job?
The kids. I love kids and love helping them decide what they want to be in life. I work for a small rural school where I’m also the athletic girls volleyball coach. I have an opportunity to work with the kids from the time they are freshmen until they graduate.

What do you like least about being a school counselor
This sounds bad but the parents are my least favorite thing about the job. I have to deal with a lot of families and personal issues. Often the kids have one idea about what they want and the parents have another.

Outside of education what do you help out with?
Education is my top role when I’m dealing with the kids but sometimes discipline issues come up where I’m dealing with helping them with situations. Also teen pregnancy is a big issue over the last 10 years so I work with the teen moms with courses so they can still finish up with high school and get enrolled in college.