Blog #10

            Ever since I started the School Counseling program here at Millersville I have taken a genuine interest in all aspects of career counseling.  The more I grow within this program as a counselor, the more I am realizing my true calling may be working in a high school. 

            I think the main reason why I am so interested in the career aspect of school counseling is because of a personal negative experience that impacted me as a teen.  The last month of my junior year of high school I got called to the guidance counselor for the first time in my high school career.  It was literally the first time that I ever met my guidance counselor.  So I sit down with him to talk about my future plans and what they include.  I talk to him about possibly attending college and pretty much told him I have no clue what I would like to do in the future.  So instead of him exploring my interests and possible majors/career paths, he simply looked at my grades, which were horrible, and told me that maybe I shouldn’t focus on attending college.  He said something like, "because of your lack of interest in school and your irresponsible behavior patterns, maybe a trade job would be more appropriate for you."  So he talked about me becoming a construction worker, auto mechanic, etc…

            When I was 16 years old I pretty much had no interest in anything, other than sports and all other unimportant things.  Thinking about my future was simply an after thought.  However, in that moment when I was talking to the guidance counselor, I started to really think about what I was going to do when I left high school.  When I heard what the counselor was telling me throughout the session I started to get scared.  I took what he told me to heart and assumed that I should not attend college because I was not cut out for it.  As a result of the session, I completely put school on the back burner.  I figured this guidance counselor (who knew nothing about me), knew what was best for me.  From my perspective, it sounded like he was telling me school was not important to me because I wasn’t going to continue with it anyway.

            Looking back on the situation, I now realize how much I could have greatly benefitted in taking part in some sort of interest/career assessment.  Yes, my grades were horrible, and yes, I was completely irresponsible at the time, but wasn’t I the type of child that could have used something like that?  At the very least it could have sparked my interest in some way and pointed me in some general direction.  It could have provided me with an idea of what I was interested in, and maybe even made me think about goals I would like to achieve.  All I needed was for someone to give me some tools to push me in the right direction and to get me thinking.  The last thing I needed was for someone to simply give up on me and not even give me a chance.

Drummond, R.J. & Jones, K. (2010). Assessment Procedures for Counselors and Helping Professionals ( 7^th ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc.