For
my Experimental Activity I decided to go the Career Services building and
attend a workshop. I had always looked at workshops to go to but just never
made the time to go. After looking
at my options I chose to attend the “What can I do with a major in the helping
professions?” workshop. I have been thinking a lot about what I want to do
after I am done with undergrad. I have been going back and forth with just
trying to find a job or continue going to school for a masters degree. I
figured this would be a really good workshop to go to because it could really
help me with my decision-making.
Grad
student, Justina Farley, led the workshop. She started by talking about some
myths/ questions that we might have about helping professions. I found this to be really helpful
because it did answerer some questions that I hadn’t even thought about. One of
the myths that she brought up was “ You cannot get a job in mental health with
only a master’s degree”. This is not actually true. Except for university professors,
MA/MS graduates are in high demand, related to manage care and licensing. In
addition to community/ agency mental health jobs, masters grads can obtain LPC,
LCSW, LMFT, and others which allow for private practice. One really interesting
thing that Justina talked about was that you do not have to have a masters
degree in order to get a PhD. Most
clinical and counseling PhD programs accept bachelor’s level applicants.
Next
Justina went in to the different things you can do in the mental health helping
fields. Administrative work, applied work – psychology, counseling, social
work, applied work – non-therapy, education, and others such as human resources
and life coaching are the areas you focused on. Non-therapy work in College
Student Personnel, administration and student affairs is really what I have
been thinking about doing as a career. Even though I probably do not want to do
counseling, I think the skills and knowledge I have acquired in class will be
very beneficial in any career I choose.
Towards
the end of the presentation Justina informed us of what each level of a degree
meant and what it takes to get to that level. These was really helpful to me
because it gave me a visual map and time line that I could look over and think
more about. I was able to look at each level and how much time it would take to
obtain that degree. Next she gave us a list of places we could volunteer or
contact for more information or experience. During undergrad it is very
important to build relationships with different people within the university
and the community and volunteer work is a great way to build those
relationships.
Overall,
this workshop and experience was very informative and helpful and it gave me a
lot of information to consider and think about. After going, I would say I was
maybe a little more confused than I was when I went in because I had so much
more information to think about. However I am still very glad I went because
now I know I am on the right track and I know the steps I need to be taking in
order to get where I want to be.
