Psychology / Counseling / Career Advice

This meeting covered a lot of important information about psychology, college/career counseling, and career advice for highschoolers!

Speaker's background

Worked at Pepperdine University: for the business school of law students and MBA students (graduates for business and law)
Worked in career centers
Bachelor's degree in psychology
Master's degree in counseling with a specialty in college counseling
another Masters in public policy (CLU gave her an employee discounts)
Earned her doctorate in higher education leadership a few years ago for working at a college

Why she chose her career

Originally received her masters in clinical psychology
When she started to help people, she realized it is hard work

People in sessions would make progress, but then leave and lose all that progress

She heard about a positive type of counseling where you motivate people and you help them set goals = career and guidance counseling
She went to West Valley Occupational Center in Woodland Hills and did an informational interview with the career counselor

Switched over into college counseling and is much happier working on a college campus
She helps people in grad school, law school, med school to get great jobs and internships

So she absolutely loves her job

Every day she gets great success stories (ex: helping students to get internships, more examples at clucareer on Instagram)

Day to Day Activity

makes her own schedule each day (building the social media site, checks her email)
receives many emails asking for her to look over personal statements, resumes, cover letters or questions
handles all the student worker jobs on campus (around 800 student worker jobs)
runs a workshop

updates the website because they have some new majors and minors
recruits students

goes into her candidate database of over 20,000 students and alumni, looks for people that say they wanted a specific internships and emails company internship requests directly to them
students who got an interview come in to practice for it

has freedom to decide if she does not want to do workshops one semester
about three counseling sessions every day (five to ten minutes long)

to conclude day-to-day activities include: emails, meeting with people, doing workshops, and teaching her class

Career Counseling

Workshops

Ex: using social media for your career salary negotiations
interviewing, job search, resume writing, how to get an internship

Plan events

career fairs where over 100 employers are invited onto campus

Teaches classes (career, business, and communications)

students come to class to guide workshops (but includes class credit)
Do values assessments: look at your values and think how you want them to align with your job
Ex: your manager is doing unethical things (stealing money) that might not align with your values.

Write grants

Her idea of helping different causes was hard to achieve because she was busy
So, she started this program, where she found about 50 nonprofits in Ventura County: United Way, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Boys and Girls Club, Alzheimer's, ALS, etc. and match students into internships (without requiring a resume)
using her value of helping others
she wrote a grant to Bank of America about this program so that students get paid by the corporations (receive over $100,000 in the last five years)

How to write grants: go to the people going to give money and answer the following questions:

Why is your program effective?
What does it help?
How can you prove it?

gives surveys to the students before and after to prove their learning

proves to employers that they should give money.

Employer relations

dress nicely for employer meetings and greet employers
employers come to the college campus to try to recruit students, do interviews for jobs

Psychology

psychology can go into the business field, human resources, sales
if you're good with people and establish trust easily (everybody just talks to you and tells you their problems), then you'll probably do really well in sales

women do well in sales because they're may appear as less pushy

psychology helps you to be good with people
this would work in almost any field

Jobs in psychology

Therapist: 6-10 years of schooling
Counselor: a two to three year masters degree

Counseling (General)

College counseling jobs include:

career counselors
academic counselors
study abroad office counselors (traveling all over and checking out the sites where the students are going to go)
financial aid counselors
admissions counselors (people that come here to try to get you to go to college)
higher education
counseling in K through 12 (similar to our high school counselors)
this requires an extra credential
counselors at your school here they stay forever

her type of counseling takes less schooling, it's easier to get into and there's more jobs
in colleges, you can be an assistant director, a director, VP, a dean with just with a masters
a doctorate can be used if you want to be a president of a college or something big time
in college counseling you only really need a master's degree.

Public

Policy

There's a lot of field representatives and caseworkers that work in government and help communities
there's a big helping aspect

a lot of government offices where you actually help the callers that call in that have a major problem and you do a lot of problem solving for them

it sets you up to go into legal stuff: nonprofit and government

Ex: there's an organization that receives $200 million a year from the tobacco tax
they give money out to other small nonprofits that do things for children

typical policy analyst jobs actually analyze policy (not government-related)
but public policy is mostly something you'd want to do for government.

Steps to finding your career and beyond . . .

DOWNLOAD 6 Ste...cess.pdf

This outline (download it above) works for everyone

first stage: career exploration
who am I?
what do I like dislike?
what is my personality like?
what subjects am I good in?
what jobs are out there?
stage two: research different fields
She met with a career counselor when she wasn't sure what job she wanted
that solidified her goals for me to meet with somebody in the field who was very happy
also by reading stuff or knowing a few people in that field
stage three: you have your decision and know what you want to do (some students might already be here)
it's a matter of just putting things on your resume and doing extracurricular activities that are related

Assessing possible careers:

know your limitations (ex: don't be a doctor if you are not that interested in science)

ask yourself what you are good at

Google "qualifications" for different jobs

options for job may be in Texas or Alaska, but it doesn't really matter
go down to the qualifications of the job and then it'll state required degrees and what is acceptable
a variety of degrees can be used for a job (just one accept degree is a popular misconception)

ask where you want to work

ex: nonprofit organizations are mostly government or business jobs

Majors and Minors in College

She does not believe in getting double majors or minors because it means more schooling

if you have extra time on your hands it's better to get an internship
It will turn into something that's actually going to help you to get your job
even if you have a double major and a minor in the end, companies are mostly looking at your GPA and then your standardized test scores
most people go to college to get a good job, so internships are important
there are a variety of majors available for a job
majors are secondary to your experience; experience is most important
A Masters will show you what your niche is and an undergrad degree is more general

Getting a masters right after

burned out
Pricey
Only get it when you are sure (it is ticket to your field)
Bachelor's degree does not need to match
but, you may need to take a few extra classes
Save it for later if you don't know your passion
Can go slower and enjoy it more when taken later

Internships

about 60% of internships lead to jobs

an internship is also kind of like a long interview

Ask yourself: do I like them?
If after you graduate college you remember you really liked an internship, call them
a lot of times they'll take you back because they know you
be on your best behavior during your internships
show up a little bit early, always be on time
five years later when you're up for some big job they're gonna look at your resume and call your references (your internships)
so, those people in those internships follow you for years to come

get at least two internships related to your career goals while in college

Helps you to get a job after you graduate, if needed
You can also go to grad school and do internships then
But, this could be an expensive mistake
you could actually get an internship and a job with your bachelor's degree

Job Advice

Your first resume is just gonna have your first job (ex: Baskin Robbins)
Don't worry about not having a good resume. Everybody starts with those first jobs. So the best way to land an internship is get a couple first jobs so that you can put those on your resume to get your internship
you need a little basic resume, so get any little first job even if it's tutoring, babysitting, summer camps etc.

If you get to college and you've never had a job, do work study

It is such a great introduction to the work world
you do a semester to have a work study on campus, which is very convenient, and then you branch out afterward

When you get your first job, you're not going to love it

you might think you made the wrong decision
the first jobs are always the worst because you're getting all the junky stuff (higher ups are passing all that stuff down to you)
as you move up in your field then you have the power to change responsibilities
then you can form your perfect job
if you want to move up in your field, you will probably need a master's degree

When you choose your career and start your first internships and jobs, you may not be very happy and begin doubting yourself

Those are not a very good indicator of what it's going to be five years later when you're actually in the field and moving up
you don't make a lot of money in the beginning levels of any career
most field make a lot more money in the mid and high levels