Experimental Activity

            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.