Andy Gutierrez
4/27/2013
Psychology 1010
Signature assignment: Interview with a School Counselor
For this signature assignment I interviewed Marni Willard. Born and raised in South Carolina, where she went to school and got her major in Psychology at Furman University. Once married she moved down to Utah with her husband and have been living here in Bountiful ever since. I asked her a series of questions about her job such as the training she received, the work she does, why she chose that career and if she likes it so far, what would she change about her and advice that she’d give to people who want to go into that field of work.
There are a few requirements that have you be checked of your list before you can go into the field of being a counselor. You have to get a Bachelor’s and then a Master’s degree afterwards in fields such as marriage and family therapy, clinical social work, mental health counseling, and school counseling. You have to get a license given to by the state, because every state requires you to have a license. You’re usually required to have a little bit of experience before you can be fully licensed as a counselor; usually it’s done by doing some clinical practice under supervision. Some keys skills that you should have if you want to go into this field of work are good listening and communication skills, ability to develop relationships with many different types of people, and organizational skills for keeping detailed client records. Willard started her career path at the University of North Carolina for her graduate work and began her internship at Pathways Elementary school where she worked about 23 hours a week. When asked what she enjoys most about being a school counselor she said that she likes the diverse set of duties that she has to do. She would hate sitting at a desk all day doing the same routine over and over again, but as a counselor each day is different. The job of a counselor entails a lot of work, but it can be broken down into two different categories. The proactive and responsive; in proactive you run groups, teach classes, work with parents, run programs, etc. In the responsive category you meet with students for individual counseling for whatever reason. To Willard, the most rewarding part of being a counselor is that she gets to work with some of the greatest kids she’s ever met, every single day and she’s not even close to getting bored of it. She loves getting to know each and every student at her school. There are many people and students out there that believe counseling doesn’t really help much at all; when asked if she felt that counseling worked she answered, “One of the major pushes that the counseling community is working on right now is showing data that points to the results of counseling; although I will admit that I’ve had my share of days where I’ve wondered that myself, but I know I couldn’t do this if I didn’t think I was making a change every day. Her advice to anyone thinking of going into this field is to make sure you’re passionate about counseling. It’s a high stress job, low reward job with a not so heavy paycheck. If you are passionate though, then by all means, go for it! It’s a lot of fun and a great experience.
My personal experience with counselors has always been a positive one. I’ve gotten close to them and feel like I can trust them and can go to them when I’m in need of help. I believe that counseling really does help and contribute to the community. There are many kids whose only friend sometimes is the counselors, so they’re an absolutely crucial necessity for a school to have.
I personally don’t think that I could go into this field of work mainly due to the heavy responsibility that would come with the job. Meaning, that you have to care over every student in the school and help them with whatever they’re going through and sometimes those problems can be very severe. Your license could be on the line sometimes. This field of work is probably only for a select few who really just want to give back to others and not expect anything back.