On 4/18/08, timn420 wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> I’m thinking of trying a different career and would like to
> get further information about school counseling. I’ve been
> reading the forums and am hoping to get a non-bias opinion
> compared to what I might hear from a college recruiter.
>
>
> 1) I’m coming from a business/developer background in
> financial services so I have limited teaching experience. I
> have done plenty of teamwork, mentoring, and tutoring in my
> career, but no teaching. How bad will my lack of teaching
> experience hold me back from getting a job? I’m in the
> South, so I’m not sure what the market is like around here.
> I would hate to work hard to get a Masters, but have my
> lack of teaching experience hold me back.
>
> 2) Stupid question, but… are school counselors and
> guidance counselors the same position? I find career
> advising, counseling, and test administration/scoring
> interesting. Are these all attributes of a school counselor?
>
> 3) My local universeity has a Masters in School
> Education as well as a Masters in Social Work. I’ve read
> that the MSW may be more flexible, but the MSE is probably
> the best way to go if I want to stick with school
> counseling?
>
> Sorry for the basic questions, but I really find counseling
> to be a fascinating field as well as working in developing
> career paths for students. I‘m just trying to see if this
> is a valid field for me to consider. I’m a little worried
> about my lack of teaching experience though…
In today’s world of testing in my California district School
Counselors are really number two of your questions. Yes
there is human personal counseling and problem solving. But a
large part of the school counselor is career orientation,
college readiness, testing for high school exit exam, the
annual STAR testing (state assessments used for NCLB). We
used the test results in junior high for academic placement
and the high school did the same. School Counselor and
Guidance counselor are the same thing. The duties can vary
from school to school and according to grade level and what
your principal wants you to do.
You really need to be able to explain test results to the
public (parents) and even teachers. The next level would be
analyzing group results to chart the overall progress of the
school. Usually the Principal does this but knowing how to
read and interpret data is good. There are many more duties
such as the master schedule which can be done by the
Principal or delegated to the head counselor.
There are many more parts to the job! Your business real
world experience would be a wonderful asset and more than off
set the no teaching experience. I bet you did many teaching
type duties in your occupation if you just thought about it.
I was a vocational teacher, then computer teacher then a
counselor and really emphasized having job skills and being
job ready. I think the two year community college is a good
choice for many HS grads rather than the four year just to
save money and get the general ed requirements out of the
way. And graduating with a two year degree is good too.
If I was you I would not quit my day job and go to school at
night. There is no guarantee about the job market, but your
real world life experience is a good selling point.
1996 - 2008. All Rights Reserved. Please review our