Counseling Career: Rationale for Undertaking the Program and Degree
Write a 1,750- to 2,100-word paper demonstrating your analytical and written communication skills. Include the following topics in your paper:
Counseling Program and Degree
Explain your reasons for seeking a counseling degree. What do you hope to achieve in this program? Ensure your reasons are rational and well thought out.
Explain why you feel you will be successful in a graduate counseling program.
Counseling Aptitude
Research and summarize at least 2 research articles on commonly accepted personality characteristics of counselors.
List 3–4 personality characteristics of effective counselors and describe how you embody them currently.
Describe how your personality characteristics will impact your counseling approach and style in a counseling setting.
Potential Areas for Growth
Explain some challenges you expect to encounter in your journey to becoming an effective counselor. Include anticipated challenges related to completing your academic program, as well as challenges related to your counseling aptitude.
Describe how you plan to address or overcome these challenges.
Cite 3–5 scholarly sources in your paper. Format your citations and references according to APA guidelines.
Refer to the resources in the APA Resources learning activity in Week 1 as you write your paper.
Resources
Center for Writing Excellence
Reference and Citation Generator
Grammar Assistance
Counseling Career
Student’s Name
Institution Affiliation
Course Code and Name
Instructor’s Name
Date Submitted
Counseling Career
Counseling is an exciting field that has attracted and drawn me towards it. The rationale that has driven me towards the field includes the innate desire that I hold regarding helping people handle life challenges and navigate through these issues. Therefore, I must have advanced skills and knowledge that would guide me toward achieving the needed objectives and helping people in society. The way to approach the process is through pursuing a counseling degree, which aligns well with my passion for helping people overcome obstacles and challenges. It also helps in getting personal growth. The discussion in this paper will focus on my different motivations for pursuing a counseling degree that prepares me for a graduate counseling program. Furthermore, information regarding the personality characteristics of effective counselors and challenges I foresee in the journey will be discussed.
Rationale for Undertaking Counselling Program and Degree
Like every other career, people have different driving forces or guidelines that make them select their desired courses. The reason why I selected a counseling degree is because of the different experiences that I had. These experiences were instrumental in shaping my perspective of how I look at people and how I want to help people suffering. Furthermore, these experiences were more focused on mental health, such as seeing people suffer from stress, depression, or anxiety made me feel that there is something that can be done to make them better individuals. Therefore, I had to select ways that would improve the outcome. Before even starting to undertake the degree program, I got an opportunity to volunteer at local shelters in our community. My elder brother and mother worked as healthcare counselors, and I would visit them and even volunteer to help with specific tasks. Seeing that they improved other people's lives was always a joy, and they would leave the