different papers

Psychology has many career paths you can pick. You can be a psychologist, a caseworker, a behaviour analyst, or so many other career fields in psychology that you can choose. Out of all these options of jobs in psychology, being a school counsellor is the most interesting. Counseling is “contextualized help-giving that is dependent on the meaning clients derive from their environmental interactions”(H. George McMahon, Erin C. M. Mason,Nichole Daluga-Guenther, and Alina Ruiz, 2014, p.462). A job of a school guidance counsellor is to help students through one of the toughest parts of their lives. How many jobs exist where you can say that. This paper will discuss what a school counsellor does, how you become a school counsellor, the value of this profession, where they work at, the positive and negative aspects of being a school counsellor, and my interest with wanting to become a school counsellor. The first thing to know about a school counselor is what they do. Often the main objective of a counsellor is to make sure a student is on the right track to graduate and get involved getting students into a career field or work. A counsellor is in charge of many things at a school including “ providing individual counselling, to teaching classroom lessons, to conducting faculty and parent workshops, school counsellors perform duties within schools and communities that are planned but also flexible. Responding to emergencies such as peer conflicts, student self-harm, or possible abuse requires school counselors to develop strong counseling and advocacy skills with an understanding of child and adolescent development” (Grimes, L. E., Bright, S., & Whitley, N. C, 2017,p.26). They also have to create programs to deal with students needs in academics, emotions, and basically any other thing a student needs to thrive. These are just the basics of what every counselor has to do. To go more in-depth with it you would have to look at each level of education. A student at the primary level does not have the same needs as someone at the high school level. For the primary level, student counselors are just trying to get them interested in a career. They will do small things such as have a career dress-up day or have brought your dad to class day (Grimes, L. E., Bright, S., & Whitley, N. C, 2017, p.26). When you get the elementary level student counselors are able to do more complex things such as have a career fair or invite people around the community to discuss what they do (Grimes, L. E., Bright, S., & Whitley, N. C, 2017,p.26). A school counselor at Middle school is different than both elementary and primary school. Here you are starting to put them on the path towards what they want to do. If a student wanted to be a doctor, then a school counsellor would put them in science-heavy criteria compared to a student who wanted to be a photographer, who would be in more of an artistic path. Some school counselors will even meet with their parents to discuss a child's future(Grimes, L. E., Bright, S., & Whitley, N. C, 2017,p.27). Middle school is also the time where school counselors have to do with serious issues such as suicide, depression, and eating disorders.(Robertson, D. L., Lloyd-Hazlett, J., Zambrano, E., & McClendon, L., 2016, p.2). Towards the end of middle school, a school counsellor's job is to start preparing them for high school and what they will have to do there(Grimes, L. E., Bright, S., & Whitley, N. C, 2017,p.27). A School counselor who works in high school is mainly trying to help a student graduate, get to college, or find a way to get them the skills they need to enter into the workforce(Grimes, L. E., Bright, S., & Whitley, N. C, 2017,p.27). College school counselors do similar things as a high school school counselor would, basically making sure every student is on path to graduate in so many years. With all these obligations you can see that there would be drawbacks to this career path. Just trying to do all these different tasks at once can get confusing and complicated for even the best counselors. Researchers have found this to be the number one issue for school counsellors is understanding their role. It has been found that “school counsellors experience role stress when job activities differed significantly from those perceived to be appropriate and encompassed in training(Robertson, D. L., Lloyd-Hazlett, J., Zambrano, E., & McClendon, L., 2016, p.4).Not understanding their role can be especially hard for younger counsellors as they become acclimated to this career. Another drawback is the student to counselor ratio that many have to face. The ASCA says that the recommended ratio of students to counselors is two hundred and fifty students to one school counselor (Schoolcounselor.org, 2018). The amazing thing is that in the United States the average ratio of students to counselors is four hundred and eighty two students to one counselor and in Arizona is almost one thousand to one ratio of students to counselors. (Schoolcounselor.org, 2018). This would be extremely stressful for anyone to have to deal with. Imagine a person trying to control almost five hundred students or even worse working in Arizona and having to deal with one thousand. The final drawback to this career is dealing with the community. This can be a blessing and a curse. A counselor really becomes in touch with community, but a problem with that is just trying to deal with every parent can be exhausting for many school counselors. Not to mention, some of the dangers of trying to associate with people you know nothing any educational leaders are calling for more interaction with the community too(H. George McMahon, Erin C. M. Mason,Nichole Daluga-Guenther, and Alina Ruiz,2014, p.467). Even with all these drawbacks to this career there are a ton of benefits to being a school counselor. One is that you get to watch a kid grow up. Some counselors in small districts can work with kids from all different age groups and are able to see them completely change. Others who only work with students in one level at least get to watch them change for a few years. You also get to inspire someone. Many people in their lives have had a counselor inspire them to do a club or do a certain career. One school counselor even said it was her favorite part of her job saying “ I encourage my students to do what they love and love what they do. I share my story of how I wanted to be a school counselor”(Grimes, L. E., Bright, S., & Whitley, N. C, 2017,p.26). If a person loved to be involved with students and get to see them succeed this career path is for you. Plus most of the time you get weekends, holidays, and summers off. Think of all the places you can work at too. Obviously schools are there school counselors work, but there are variety of different schools a person can work at. It can go from elementary school to college. From private, public or local school(Robertson, D. L., Lloyd-Hazlett, J., Zambrano, E., & McClendon, L., 2016, p.8). To work at all these places though you have to met some requirements. At every level you are required to have at least a master's degree before becoming a school counselor. Almost every college and university in the United States offer some counselling degree. Besides that there are different requirements based on the state you live in (Schoolcounselor.org, 2018). Some have you renew your certificate after five years, some six, and even a couple of them have you renew your certificate after ten years. Each have different hour requirements in the classroom. S0me states have a long list of criteria that you to accomplish, like Minnesota who tests you on your knowledge and you have to have a certain score. Others, such as New Mexico, have very few requirements after your schooling (Schoolcounselor.org, 2018). The high qualification standards are set up like this so that they are ready to do their job without a flaw. Going back to earlier in this paper there are so many things you have to do and a mistake can have major effects. I was very aware of school counseling before this project. Not only have I had in my mind the best school counselor ever, but it is also what I want to be in the near future. Becoming a school counselor is my main goal in life to help as many people as I possibly can before I can not anymore. This has been the one field I have been drawn to ever since I saw everything my school counselor did for me. Even with her busy schedule and even owning her own business, she got me to the place I am today and cannot be thankful enough for her. I know that there is not much glamour in being a counselor, but for me it seems like the best career in the entire world. I also think it is one of the most valuable. A school counselor is mentoring and putting students on the right path every day. School counselors are one of the few people that get a say into someone's future and I believe are one of the few people that can truly change a students life. Who knows what could have happened if a counselor did not direct a student the right way. For all anyone knows they could end up as president of the United States and a school counselor helped lead them to become president. Another reason why I am interested in counseling is that I love working with students. I have worked with middle schoolers every summer for the last few years and generally just enjoy it. The third reason is that I do not want to be the guy who just has to do business and financial work all day. In school counseling there is paperwork, but it is not typical paperwork then what most people do. Most of it deals with students and I think that is a cool aspect to it. Even with all the research I have done I still have a ton of questions about school counseling. Most dealing with what you do in a particular situation, such as what do you do if a kid is hurting other kids and how do you treat the situation? The main question I would ask a school counselor is if they are still happy they went into counselling? Before a few years back, I wanted to be an accountant and I was taking this class for accounting. Long story short an accountant cam into class and said he would not have chosen this career ten years ago if he knew what he did now and I do not want to be that guy. school Counseling is a very interesting career. It is important for people to know what a school counselor does, what education a school counselor needs to have, where school counselor works at, some of the benefits of the career, and some of the negatives of the career. If there were a list of the most important and best careers a person can have, I definitely would think that school counseling would have to be on the list somewhere.