Running head: FORWARD THINKING TO A SCHOOL COUNSELOR CAREER

Forward Thinking to School Counselor Career

Danny O’Farrell
Dr. Schilder
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When thinking about my future career, I have been torn between the field of School

Counseling and Forensic Psychology. These two fields are very different from each other but

both deal with the study and understanding of people. Coming to Loras College has helped

point me in the direction that I have finally decided to go into. I decided to attempt to go into

the field of School Counseling. The first step in this process is to get my masters which is

something I did not think I was going to ever attempt to do. Once I took an AP Psychology class I

finally found something that I understood and wanted to do for the rest of my life. I have

always had a knack for understanding people and learning how to deal with people. Growing up

my brother had a difficult speaking until he was six and I have always been there to help him

deal with his difficulties. Not that this automatically qualifies to be a counselor but it has help

set me down a path of helping and understanding people. My ultimate goal is to become a

school counselor while also becoming a coach in baseball or football at the same school. While

coaching has many different forms it can also involve some counseling too. Ultimately I want to

have a positive impact in as many lives as I can and I feel this is the best route for me to go.

There are few things I actually know and understand and people are one of those few things.

The psychological topics I have learned in my time here have all been beneficial to

furthering my understanding of people and the mind. Specific ideas that have found the most

useful in becoming prepared for my future seem to stem from my classes in social psychology

and then specific topics I learned from my Learning and Cognition class. Those specific topics

would include how people learn like conditioned and unconditioned responses. The other topic

would be the different types of motivation and coping methods discussed in the class. These

are all important topics I learned throughout my time here at Loras because it helped me
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become better equipped to understand people and what makes them respond to certain

stimuli. In school counseling you have to be able to read people and try and understand what

might potentially be blocking them from succeeding in school. The whole realm of social

psychology is applicable in learning how to become a school counselor. It helps you learn how

to read people. By reading people I mean breaking down behavior and examining why one may

have certain feelings at specific times. There is a whole chapter on emotional based topics like

hot cognition, durability bias, and motivated skepticism to name a few. These terms were

beneficial to my learning to helping understand why a child may be having troubles coping in

the class room or why they might struggle to get along with other students. It would be my job

to learn and understand why these students are acting the way they are and how I can help

them better able to adjust to their life in the classroom as well as outside of it. Then looking at

the topics I learned from learning and cognition are also things I find useful when applying my

knowledge to counseling kids in the future. Understanding that people learn differently and

react to different methods of conditioning/punishment can help me understand why a student

is struggling in school. I have taken education classes here at Loras and one of the things I

learned was that when a student struggles or acts out it can be because they are struggling to

keep up with the class. I feel my job as a counselor is to discover why the student may feel that

they are behind and how I can help them get accustomed to class. If that means I have to set up

something with the teacher where they figure out how to tailor this material for the student,

then that something I have to learn and understand how to do. This also applies to my

understanding of motivation and coping that I learned from Learning and Cognition. There are a

lot of factors that go into why a student may be struggling in school or having difficulties coping
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with outside grief. As a counselor I have to understand that there are factors at home that

could cause a student to struggle in school and vice versa. My goal as a counselor would be to

make sure that students do not bring their troubles from home to school and their troubles

from school home. I know from personal experience that there can be damage to one’s social

life when they take their problems from school back home with them.

Learning how to understand what a student is going through and helping them to

overcome these difficulties fall under the Beneficence ethical principle. This is the one I believe

in the most because it says we should do our duty to ensure the betterment of our

subjects/students. When I become a school counselor it is because I want to help students be

able to learn how to deal with the difficulties the world brings because I felt like me and many

others didn’t get that help. I would want to be an active part of the school and be able to help

the students deal with their issues. If I were to turn a blind eye and not take my job as seriously

then it would lead to harm for the students which would break the non-maleficence ethical

principle as well. School counseling requires an active effort to help students with their

problems. While some counselors may just wait for a student to walk into their office and give

them a half hour of their time I believe that my job would to be active in school and try to

address issues before they become serious. The ethical principle of fidelity and responsibility

shouldn’t even need to be official principle. When I decided to become a counselor I already

felt like it was my responsibility to help people cope with their struggles. So, when I become a

school counselor I am actively choosing to give my best effort to help students get through the

stresses that they deal with.

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I feel as though that I have some of the necessary abilities to succeed in the field of

school counseling. It may be cliché to say as a psych student but I am really good at

understanding people and reading them. When I say this I mean that I can get a pretty good

understanding for who a person is, why they did what they did, and what they may potentially

do. I sometimes call this people watching and it is a fun game to play when I see people walking

by me in public. I would say that when I do this it gives me a better understanding of how to

talk to people and approach people in public. I always joke around with people that I get along

with everybody and I think this is the reason why. Being able to read people is the one thing

that I feel that I am good at. I am not particularly good at much else when it comes to school. I

was never great at math, I was definitely never good at writing papers, and I was ok at about

everything else. Once, however, I took an AP Psych class and found where I could excel at

something. The one thing that I could study that didn’t really have to do with school was

people. Learning what makes people work is one of my favorite things to do. So translating it to

a field where I can help people was something I have always wanted to do. I have always

wanted to help people but I never knew how to do so. Then I learned that I can do so by going

into a psychology based field and I couldn’t have been happier. I am kind of throwing all of my

eggs in this basket because I feel it is the one thing I can do good at and feel good doing it.

When it comes to achievements I have when it comes to related fields in school

counseling I feel that I have no formal work experiences that I can put on a resume. However, I

feel that I have a lot of life experiences that helped me choose what I wanted to do and help

me succeed later on in the field. I am the oldest brother of three and I have always offered to

help assist my brothers in any capacity possible. I mentioned earlier that my brother was slow
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to come along in his life and I have always been there to help through his difficulties and I think

that is what inspired me to pursue fields that help people. With my other brother I have always

volunteered to help coach his sports teams because I liked being involved with sports and

helping teach those younger than me. So I have experience to spare when it comes to working

with kids and helping them become better at whatever they desire. Along with coaching, I feel

that I am fully prepared to help counsel and teach a younger generation. I have always been

motivated to help others and help them defeat their problems. When given the opportunity I

would fully commit to the students. I may not have the best work ethic when it comes to school

work but when it comes down to things I am interested in and have the desire to do I become

consumed with what I want to accomplish. This is something that I have developed from

playing sports and being part of teams in general. You learn to become obsessed with what you

do because if you are going to do something you should do it well. If I were to become a school

counselor it is because it is something I want to do and it is something I want to do well. So,

while I have no formal achievements or the best work ethic in school, I am fully committed to

using my life skills that I have gained to become the best I can be in a position that will give me

a sense of fulfillment. I want to become a school counselor because I feel like it is a job that I

will thoroughly enjoying doing day in and day out because I can help as many people as I can.

To this point I really only have one career contingency. This is to follow in my dad’s

footsteps and become a police officer. However, I wouldn’t stop there because I would want to

become a criminal profiler because this involves the use of psych and has been something I

thought about doing in my time here at Loras. While being a criminal profiler would use many

skills that I mentioned earlier like social psych or cognitive psych to help understand criminals
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there are other ways that a regular police officer can use psych to succeed at their jobs. They

can use psych concepts to help create programs in their community to help reduce the threat

of crime or use psychological programs to help people in jail reduce recidivism. Taking Criminal

Justice classes has taught me how to apply psych concepts to other topics like crime. If I were to

become a police officer, I would look to make a difference by applying my psych knowledge to

an aged process of arresting people. Eventually I would look to move up the ladder and use this

information practically to help catch the especially deranged individuals. I feel that with my dad

as a police officer and taking criminal justice classes have shown me that I can use my skills of

reading people to make a difference in helping catch criminals. Much like the show Criminal

Minds I feel that to catch a criminal you have to understand who they are first. With my psych

education and understand of the criminal system I feel that I could climb the ladder and

eventually get to a point where I can help catch these criminals. I have no specific achievements

in this career path besides just being the son of a police officer. It was something I thought was

worth pursuing but I decided that I would impact more lives becoming a school counselor than

spending time as a police officer and hoping to move up and become a criminal profiler. I would

be motivated to be the best at my job and change the outlook people have on police officers

however. I would look to be a community oriented officer and use psychological methods to

build a rapport with the community. It is something I have considered doing after seeing my

father struggle with his job because it is hard continuing to do a job where you know the public

hates you. So, my goal would be to change the narrative that people have with cops by using

psych techniques to help build relationships with the community I am serving.