How to decide whether or not to go back to school

November 12, 2023 6:49 PM

Ultimately, the question is this: Do I strive for my ideal career as a counselor despite health challenges or continue working as a freelance writer because of the flexibility?

I'm currently a freelance writer but want to go to back school to become a counselor. I don't like what I do now, but I have some health challenges, so the flexibility and freedom are nice.

My parents are willing to help support me financially through school, so I might only need a part-time job, and potentially no job.

My thoughts/concerns are:

1. I don't know what I think about the idea of pursuing job satisfaction at the cost of so much financially and energetically. We're told, on one hand, to pursue meaning, and on the other, to not depend on external things for our happiness. Sometimes, pursuing a master's in counseling feels like trying to create a very specific circumstance that will make me happy and fulfilled. And according to Michael Singer (author of The Untether Soul), if a job makes us unhappy, we are the problem, not the job. Because, according to him, "bliss" as he calls it, is always available.

2. I don't know what being a graduate student will actually feel like in terms of course load. I think I'll find the content interesting because I love psychology so much, but I just don't know what the reality will be like. And I don't know that I'll love the career. I can't imagine not loving it, because I love listening to people and talking to people one-on-one so much, but it may lose its shine. Although, I just can't imagine it being worse than writing.

3. My health is an unknown. It's also very important to me to not to let it hold me back. But there is, as hard as it is for an idealist like myself to admit, a reality that I have to consider. My health is hard for me to talk about, I've been through a lot, and I don't know what the future holds. Many days I feel okay. But I don't know what the balance is between taking this into consideration and pursuing a dream. Pursuing meaning and fulfillment.

4. I'm single. I might always be single. I don't know. I hope not, but if so, fulfillment in some area of my life will be really nice to have. Every dream life scenario that I have includes me being a counselor. Short of romantic love, I can't think of anything more that I want.

And....

5. I've considered being a life coach, because ultimately I prefer coaching to anything clinical. But, I don't think I can get myself to feel comfortable with being a coach without a degree. I want to find a way around this, because the truth is, what I want to do is possible right now. As a life coach. But it involves social media promotion and other types of marketing that I'm not sure I would be comfortable with sans degree. I would *love* if I could get past this hangup (?) and start working toward this dream right now without going back to school. But I have no idea how to or if it's possible.

I would so appreciate your thoughts. Thank you.

posted by ygmiaa to Human Relations (17 answers total)

I can't tell you whether or not to go back to school for counseling (or how to decide), but I can tell you that I put off doing the same for years with the idea that I could get into life coaching if I just tried to market hard enough. Now I'm in school, and, while it's difficult sometimes, everybody tells me I'll get a job easily when I graduate. My only regret is that I didn't do it sooner; apparently I like counseling a lot more than I like selling life coaching.
posted by lgyre at 7:32 PM on November 12, 2023 [6 favorites]

I don't think I can get myself to feel comfortable with being a coach without a degree. I want to find a way around this, because the truth is, what I want to do is possible right now. As a life coach. But it involves social media promotion and other types of marketing that I'm not sure I would be comfortable with sans degree.

I don't know if coaching or counseling is the better path for you (they're not the same thing, and generally neither is just listening and talking to people). But: is this an all-or nothing decision you have to make now? Can you start doing some coaching work right now, on an exploratory basis, alongside your writing work, and see where word of mouth gets you? Building up word of mouth takes time, probably a year or two at least, but if your goals are modest it's a way to get started without having to constantly sell yourself.

You might also be able to market (as non-intensely as you like) to some niche, like people who want coaching as a way to help them with creative goals, such as writing. Or as a way to come to terms with their health situations.

Similarly, are there great programs you can do at a manageable pace healthwise, like one course a semester? Would the experiential part (I'm assuming any worthwhile course would have you both observing and practicing while under observation) be manageable?


I do think, with either coaching or counseling, that you need to think seriously about what you will and won't be able to offer to clients; about the ways in which you often won't be able to help them, and how what might feel; and about what expectations both you and they will need to have. If you go into it with a pure "it'll be fun and I'll help people" mindset, without thinking seriously about the real responsibility a therapist or even a coach assumes, I think that can make bad outcomes more likely.


Regarding school: what was your undergrad experience like? Aside from workload - how did you feel about writing papers, doing assigned reading, and taking exams? How did you feel about working within models you might not always agree with or find interesting? How did you feel about being evaluated by others?
posted by trig at 8:27 PM on November 12, 2023

OMG just do it already. I don't mean to be flippant, but no one puts this much thought into a thing they don't want to do. Go for it! Go you!
posted by atomicstone at 8:29 PM on November 12, 2023 [8 favorites]

I would recommend doing informational interviews with folks who are doing what you are looking to do. Make sure the reality of the day to day matches your expectations. In addition, to my knowledge the role of counselor can be approached from multiple fields. So before you apply to different programs make sure you are reasonably confident that you are selecting the approach that is right for you.

You also need to make sure that it makes financial sense for you to enter this career. How much will you be earning vs how much will you owe in loans? If you are in the U.S., the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program might be an option if you a) have the right employer b) work full time. There are different repayment plans (and even loan discharge for disability), which reduces the financial risk. But at best there's an opportunity cost to going back to school, so do due diligence.

Regarding life coaching, I think it's worth it to do informational interviews/ additional research. I think you might want to figure out if any of the certifications are worth it. Or maybe it would be worth it to you to take a course in social media promotion.
posted by oceano at 8:41 PM on November 12, 2023 [3 favorites]

Informational interviews and doing coaching on the side are great ways to test things out before committing to school (and all those hours!)
I was also contemplating going back to school for counseling and decided I’d try out taking a couple psychology classes at a local college and volunteering for a local suicide prevention hotline. I chose these little experiments because was mildly more interested in clinical work than research, wasn’t sure about how I’d feel going back to school, and talked to a few friends who have previously volunteered to understand which places have great training and have communities of people who are interested in into working as a therapist — so depends on what you’re interested in finding out. But just wanted to throw in a few more suggestions on things to try if you’re wanting to gather more information.
posted by sincerely yours at 12:01 AM on November 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

Nthing that you need to talk to people who do the work you are trying to get into. Specifically, you need to understand what exhausts them to evaluate how that meshes with you health constraints. You need to explore what it is like to do this work part time and if you can earn a living doing it part time. Part-time employee would be different from reducing your workload at the moment, you'd probably still have a fixed schedule.

If you want to hang out your shingle and work independently you have to understand the requirements and economics of doing that and plot a path that allows you to do that. As freelancer you are already running a business but you'd be running a new to you kind of business with different demands and constraints. There may be different/additional hoops to jump through.

Depending on how the flexibility helps with your health constraints at the moment also consider if that would be the case as counsellor. For example, people will see you on a weekly/bi-weekly schedule. People are busy and may have to psych themselves up for an appointment so regular schedule changes are unlikely to work for the majority of people.
posted by koahiatamadl at 3:43 AM on November 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

In addition to getting info from people in the career you want (which this Metafilter question kind of is!), I'd also suggest figuring out where you might go to school and what kinds of programs exist that might fit your constraints, and talking to them. Like, would your health mean you needed a mostly-online school? Would you move for school if you needed to or do you need to be constrained to where you live, and if the latter, what are your options?

If there is a specific school or type of program you want, talking specifically to their admissions department about whether your specific health constraints are likely to work with how they run things and what kinds of accommodations they can provide might give you really useful information.
posted by gideonfrog at 3:53 AM on November 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

RE opting for life coaching: note that you would be limited to clients who can afford you without help from their health insurance. The LMHCs I know felt icky about that.
posted by metasarah at 4:07 AM on November 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

I can’t speak to the counseling part and people have that pretty well in hand, but I’ll just throw in that your alternative plan of freelance writing is only going to keep getting harder.
posted by babelfish at 6:55 AM on November 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

Freelance writing is not sustainable as a career. I hate putting that in writing but it's true. People in general don't read and those who do read don't pay to read. Very little that isn't behind a paywall requires a skilled, experienced writer to produce anymore. I write for a living and I seriously doubt my job or anything like it will last even half the decade I still have to work before retirement is even an option.

Counseling is growing by leaps and bounds because anxiety, depression, burnout and an inability to focus are baked into modern society. If you don't need work-related benefits you could certainly set your own hours and limit work to what your health allows.

Life coaching sounds spammy as heck to me - no offense but it seems like it is practiced by a lot of people who couldn't figure out their own goals so they're sharing the "research" they did rather than deep knowledge of various industries, trends, etc.
posted by headnsouth at 7:02 AM on November 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

Look at what post-school life would look like too, especially right after graduation. In the U.S., master's level therapists usually require many years of supervised clinical hours before you can take the licensure exam, and those hours are often poorly paid. (And in California, at least, you have to accumulate all of them within six years, or they expire.)

If you're thinking of going into private practice, that will likely still involve marketing yourself. If you're thinking of working for an agency, that might be less flexibility, etc.

You obviously don't have to map out your entire life right now, but it's worth being aware of what you want to do with the degree and what would be required to achieve it, too, so you can factor that into your decision-making.
posted by lapis at 7:52 AM on November 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

Previous posts have covered the education/career bit, from my personal experience I would encourage you to actively seek volunteering opportunities that would put you as close as possible to actual counselling and therapy work. I also thought that being a counsellor was my dream job, away from being a project manager. I'm based in the UK so training looks differently, but I went as far as getting halfway through the professional diploma (2 years training to get to that place) and secured a volunteering position with a bereavement charity as a counsellor.

I enjoyed the initial training, I enjoyed previous volunteering on a crisis textline. When it came to volunteering as a counsellor I realised very quickly I couldn't do it and didn't want to do it, and after some soul-searching came to the realisation that counselling wasn't really my dream job. So I wound strongly recommend that you check for yourself whether you actually want to do the very hard work of being a counsellor.
posted by coffee_monster at 10:11 AM on November 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

Okay, so I'm watching a movie right now. Heroine is all, "should I settle down into a regular job instead of constantly moving around" and calls her dad. He asks how her gut feels about it. She says her gut is 50% excited and 50% terrified. He says when you get to 51% on either side...that's the answer.

I nth that writing is no longer a career option. It sounds like some kind of coaching/counseling is better either way, it just depends on how much money/work/time you want to put into prepping for that. Can you afford to go into that level of debt for grad school, that is a big one. Can you, I dunno, call up the grad programs of schools you'd consider and talk to people about it? Ask what they do for people with health issues?
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:14 AM on November 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

My parents are willing to help support me financially through school, so I might only need a part-time job, and potentially no job.

This is an extraordinary opportunity and level of support. It sounds like you can go back school and maybe freelance a little bit, and then you basically keep your freelance gig going (on a very small scale) and get to go to school without incurring debt. I don't know your parents' financial situation, but I'd jump on this opportunity for a program I was truly and genuinely interested in, which you are! Going back to school becomes harder the longer you wait.

I can't speak to your specific situation, but I found graduate school easier than undergraduate after a few years away. I was more engaged and excited about the content, and more grown up in my approach.
posted by bluedaisy at 2:22 PM on November 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

To follow on to coffee_monster, suicide lifelines take a lot of volunteers.
posted by flimflam at 2:41 PM on November 13, 2023

Best answer: And according to Michael Singer (author of The Untether Soul), if a job makes us unhappy, we are the problem, not the job. Because, according to him, "bliss" as he calls it, is always available.

people seem to be tactfully ignoring this part but it is relevant to your planning process in a number of ways. I can see how this might be a fatally attractive philosophy to a counselor or therapist: the members of any profession organized around the idea that clients must, can, and will change themselves and their attitudes to achieve health and happiness will struggle with situations where that is not possible or not true.

however, although I am not familiar with this Singer beyond your summary above, I don't think he can possibly mean that, because bliss is always available, you should therefore do nothing to pursue it! it would indeed be your own fault that your job makes you unhappy if, and only if, you can see a realistic, worthwhile, practical path to a job you would do well and like better, and you don't take it.

being a counselor might not make you or your clients happier but the only way to be sure is to start working towards it. you can always quit grad school if it becomes clear it was a bad decision. the training will certainly expose you, sooner or later, to people you will not love listening and talking to. rather than inevitable disillusionment, this can be thought of as expanding your imagination of the possible. if you like.
posted by queenofbithynia at 4:53 PM on November 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

I kept thinking of this link and have finally tracked it down for you.
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:55 AM on November 14, 2023 [1 favorite]