College Counseling and Student Life Services in Counseling - Essay Example

?Comprehensive View of College Counseling and Life Services in Counseling Introduction The process of counseling plays a very important role in the life of a college student. The life in college brings about a gamut of changes for the students and is one where good guidance becomes imperative. As this is a phase of new experiments as well as new experiences, there are many situations where students feel the requirement of counseling. According to the research done by Plank and Jordan (2001), that when counselors are consistently and frequently available, they can make a considerable difference on the aspirations, achievements, progress, attitude and confidence of the students. With the arrival of the current generation of high-achieving college students, who are non-traditional has changed the campus environment and bought in higher levels of issues like anxiety, depression and related mental conditions. (Twenge, 2006). This in turn has placed a very high level of responsibility on the counselors. This study takes a deeper look to provide a comprehensive view of college counseling and student life services in the process of counseling. By exploring various important factors and exploring issues of counselor identity and function, it tries to understand the key role played by college counseling in student life. The scope of this research is critical because of the importance that counseling plays in modern day academic life. College counseling and Student Life Services bring about a gamut of transformation to the students at a phase where their career is about to take the right direction. A Historical Overview According to Spooner (2000), college counseling is the process where educated counseling professionals provide counseling services in a setting of higher education. While looking from a historical perspective, the role and function of college counseling has undergone a change over a period of time because of both internal as well as external factors. Changes in the society, politics, economy, demographics, and lifestyle and so on are factors that bring about the changes in the counseling services. From an internal perspective, change also happens because of different aspects that influence the campus environment. With an increase in the dynamism in society as well as the rapid pace of technological and cultural changes, the role of counseling in college has the challenge of meeting rapid changes in approach and attitude. Therefore, the college counselors have an additional responsibility of staying informed and being up to date with the understanding of student needs (Upcraft, Gardner, Barefoot, 2005). Many scholars have traced the history of college counseling services, the research done by Heppner and Neal (1983), divided the history of college counseling into four different eras. The first phase was the phase before 1945 where any form of career, educational, personal, and financial and the personnel in the campus solved healthy related issues. Towards the end of this period, many colleges realized that assistance that is more professional is required with the help of specialized counselors. The second era of 1945-1955 was one where the assessment and research involvement in many college counseling centers increased. This period was more focused on vocational counseling because of a huge population that came back to college education after the World War II ended. In the third period that was between 1955-1970, the colleges began to include personal counseling in a formal manner. In the fourth phase that was form 1970-1982, the focus sharply shifted from vocational assistance to personal assistance and counselors expanded their roles to reach out to the entire campus in a formal manner. After the 1980s, college counseling continued to evolve. Hodge (2001) mentioned that the campus clientele has become a very diverse one. According to Meadows (2000), the increasing diversity of college and university counseling has brought in new challenges for both the identity of professional as well as for generalizing research. He also added that college counseling and Student Life services would have to be more interactive and creative. Key Roles of the Counseling and Student Life Services While the role of the college counsellors has expanded drastically to include many diverse aspects in the recent years, counsellors play some key roles when it comes to college students. 1. Personal Counseling – The college environment is one where a lot of experimentation takes place and the students get exposed to a wider variety of activities. This wide exposure baffles some students and leaves them confused. In addition, the aspects such as exposure to drugs and alcohol also lead some of the students to depression at a personal level. Depression during this stage of college education would have much higher repercussions on their career as well as future (American College Health Association, 2009). Many students also feel heightened anxiety and mental trauma not only just due to the college environment, but because of the changes that they undergo emotionally and physically. Small incidents such as a difference of opinion with peer group or parents can trigger a heighted state of emotions in college students, which may lead on to depression. Personal counseling plays a key role in ensuring that this depression is overcome. Through a very good interaction with the counselor, many students have found it easier to cruise through the college life without undergoing any personal trauma or depression. In addition, counseling sessions are also provided to all the students to make sure that they have a positive outlook on a proactive basis in a regular manner. 2. Educational Counseling – The change in environment from school to college also brings about a change in which the students look at academics. While college gives the students an opportunity to learn at a much higher level, the increased competition puts strong pressure on some students. They find it difficult to keep pace with the rapid changes. The global job market has become very competitive and the anxiety to perform well educationally is one reason that increases the level of pressure (Kadison and Digeronimo, (2004). For example, during the recession that happened around 2008-2009 across the globe, the job market was hit drastically and the students had very less opportunities that made the job of the educational counselors much more difficult. Some students find it difficult to handle this high level of competition. In such cases, educational counseling helps in isolating the specific problems and learning issues. Once the matter is identified, it is much easier to overcome the challenge through any remedial methods. Through educational counseling, particular special education needs or training assistance can be provided to the students who require it at the right time. Intervention at the correct time proves to be very helpful in bringing about the transformation. Therefore, educational counseling is an important aspect of college counseling process. 3. Career Counseling – Deciding a career path is a big decision and the wide variety of career option often creates confusion among the students. It also interferes with their aptitude and they tend to get carried away to a general trend, rather than understanding, what they are actually interested in or passionate about (Engels and Associates, 2004). The time spent in college is a right method to explore and understand the right career for each student. This decision should not be made in a hurry and the help of counselors should be sought out, in case there are issues about confusion related to career choice. The role of a career counselor is very specialized and requires additional training and knowledge. Therefore, the colleges also should ensure that they recruited trained and experienced counselors who can provide assistance in solving any career related crisis also. To help the students further, most colleges have created separate career counseling cells and vocational counseling cells. Counselors provide accurate guidance to the students in order to make them understand the importance developing their aptitude and choosing a career direction that is in line with their aptitude. Through aptitude tests as well as counselor sessions, the students can get more direction in shaping a career that they like. 4. Risk Assessment and Proactive Involvement – In the recent years, counselors have started involving themselves in risk assessment through proactive approach. Earlier, college counseling and student life services were more or less provided on a reactive basis, when the students needed it. However, now the counselors have proactively started carrying out risk assessments so that they can provide the required help at a much earlier stage (Savage, 2008). The need of risk assessment has increased ever since the situation of harming others arose in college campuses. After the Virginia Tech shooting incident, many counseling centers have dedicated resources in specialized assessment to make sure that such issues do not happen in the future. The counselors are more involved and take proactive steps to find out any indications of high risk to make the campus environment secure and safe. Apart from ensuring a safe environment, risk assessment is also carried out at an individual level based on references from teachers or other students. This can help in providing the necessary help to individual students in a proactive basis. The proactive approach has become very popular in the academic environment because it has proved to be helpful for many students to overcome different types of challenges at the right time. 5. Adaptability and Diversity Management – Counselors also play a key role in helping the students adapt to an increasingly competitive environment in the college in recent times. In the modern day universities, there is a high level of diversity with students from across ethnic communities and diverse environments. For example, the number of foreign students in American Universities has increased at a very rapid pace. Hence, it has become absolutely imperative to inculcate sensitivity in the students so that they are able to adapt to the diverse environment (Chang, 1999). Through proper counseling sessions, students are encouraged to be sensitive to this diversity by being respectful to everyone. It is very important for an academic institution to work as one single and cohesive unit to make good progress. If students do not adapt properly to the conditions or if the diversity in the campus is not managed effectively, the key goal of the institutes of higher learning falters. Hence, the role of counselors in improving adaptability and diversity management has become much more important in today’s academic environment. Challenges, Ethics and Counselor Identity Issues As it is evident, the responsibilities that a counselor has increased and become much complex than before. Hence, the challenges that they face in providing high quality solutions has increased. With a very high exposure to the television as well as the internet, the dimensions of the variety of problems or issues that the students face are much more intense than before. Hence, the counselors face the constant challenge of keeping themselves updated. Diversity management and developing cultural sensitivity in the students has become another aspect that requires more attention (Davis and Humphrey 2000). Providing support in not only personal issues, but also career, educational and proactive solutions are challenges that college counselors have come to face in recent times. Counselor identity is a relatively new topic that many researchers have not yet explored in detail. However, the need to establish a proper identity for the counselor is important. As counselors handle various different and perhaps inconsistent roles, it can created multiple dimensions of professional identity and lead to confusion and misuse of skills (Magolda, 2003). Hence, the role of the college counselors should be clearly defined, by highlighting the specialization of each individual so that there are no concerns about counselor identity. Another important issue is the aspects of ethics. It is necessary to maintain a very high level of ethics in the way in which the counseling process is carried out. Confidentiality is one of the mains concerns when ethics related to college counseling is done (Patterson, 1999). The counselors should ensure a high level of integrity in maintaining confidentiality. For example, they should never discuss any personal or career related issues of any student unless they have the prior consent of the student in question. Similarly, they should have proper respect for each issue that they handle, and should not assign trivial status to any particular case. If the ethical considerations are kept in mind, then only the students will begin to trust the process of college counseling and student life services. Biblical Values and Insights related to College Counseling In a campus, there is a constant struggle in between tradition and modernity because of the constant force to embrace the modern discoveries. Therefore, while Biblical insights are often used in college counseling, there is a high involvement of secular theories as well as humanistic philosophies (Crabb and Lawrence 1975). In a Christian context, counseling starts with the premise that all human beings have an inherent tendency to commit a sin, hence the aim is to confess the sins and move ahead in manner without committing further sins. Therefore, the foundation of the counseling is based on the balance of human potential and human sins. The counseling conveys the message of exploring the potential by maintaining the ethical values of Christianity. In Christian campuses, marital and premarital counseling programs are very prominent too. However, has increasingly been noticed that worldviews such as marital counseling in the campus are finding difficulty in getting accepted even in Christian circles because of higher focus on secularity (Thomas, 1991). Personal Reflections As a college counselor, the primary role that I have to play is to ensure that the students who need attention in resolving any personal crisis related depression get help at the right time. The method of counseling offered would totally depend upon the individual situation as well as the individuals concerned. The students would be encouraged to open up and have a healthy conversation because, it was noticed that communicating and discussing the issues is the first step to resolving issues. The main goal as a student counselor has been to develop a relationship of trust and understanding with the students so that they feel free to discuss issues in a transparent manner. One way of gaining trust was to improve communication levels. Another way to improve the trust level was to maintain high level of work ethics in the role of the counselor. I also attempted to carry out counseling sessions on a proactive basis to a group of students to improve their sensitivity on cultural diversity and acceptance. This session was carried out maintaining a high level of integrity and in such a manner that none of the diverse group gets offended. The role of counselor has been increasingly challenging and complex, but it also provided me with a higher level of satisfaction. Conclusion In this research, various aspects of College counseling as well as Life evaluation services were explored and it was seen that counseling has become a very integral part of the college life this period. More and more institutions are aiming to provide holistic counseling services to their students to provide an overall development as well as a healthy environment. The proactive approach to student counseling has gathered momentum and increased the responsibility on the counselors too. The trust that the student community has on the counselors determines the efficacy of the counseling program to a large extend. References References American College Health Association. (2009). American College Health Association – National College Health Assessment Spring. Journal of American College Health, 57(5), 477-488 Chang, M. J. (1999). Does racial diversity matter? The educational impact of a racially diverse undergraduate population. Journal of College Student Development, 40, 377-395. Crabb, Jr., Lawrence J. (1975). Basic Principles of Biblical Counseling. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. Davis, D., & Humphrey, K. (2000). College counseling: Issues and strategies for a new millennium. 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