Should I study school counseling?

February 26, 2008 10:03 PM

Does anyone have experience working as a school counselor? Do I want to work as a school counselor? Should I pursue this as part of my MFT studies?

I am currently enrolled as a dual MFT and school counseling student in grad school. I am doing the school counseling thing in order to speed up my 3000 hour licensing requirement for the MFT. If I do school counseling I can get my 3000 hours faster (probably two years). I do not want to be a school counselor in the long run. I want to end up doing family, couples and adult individual therapy.
The good thing about the school counseling degree is that I can get a job in the schools immediately out of school and be earning money while I do my 3000 licensing hours. The money is nice, good, but not essential. The bad thing is not getting good experience doing family and couples therapy in the meantime.

I am also thinking about an emphasis and extra degree hours in chemical dependency, which is also an interest, and also remunerative (or so I am led to believe).

I'm looking for any and all advice.

posted by johngumbo to Education (2 answers total)

Keep in mind that as a school counselor, you may be doing huge amounts of paperwork. I expect that varies among school systems, and definitely among grades. My mother is guidance director at a high school, but even when she was a regular counselor her workload was something like 60% talking to kids (and parents and teachers) and 40% administrative. It's normal for her to get home at 6 or 7pm and do some writing on weekends, and more so around college application deadlines and when they're working out class schedules.

However. I think it would actually be fantastic background for family counseling.
posted by hippugeek at 10:48 PM on February 26, 2008

In my state the licensed psychologists for the school district and the people with counseling degrees primarily administer standardized diagnostic tests and often spend their time split between several school locations. There is almost no individual counseling or even direct one on one extended contact with students, it is mostly you placing special needs or learning disabled kids at appropriate levels and interpreting test scores. It might vary state to state. That is the public school system. You might be happier at a charter school or an alternative school where they have more individualized mission statements and may offer the opportunity for more interactive counseling. Especially at some of the alternative schools (juvenile justice, PAL schools, etc.), the issues are deeper they may allow more family involvement or actual counseling opportunities.
posted by 45moore45 at 3:42 AM on February 27, 2008