Academic excellence is often a quest that puts students in the contest to get good grades, making them so engaged in their activities that they ignore the consequence of orienting themselves towards a career path. Due to the preconceived idea students have regarding the career path, most students tend to enroll in programs that are biased towards those career paths. When it comes to deciding an “acceptable profession”, it has become a norm in today’s competitive and cut-throat environment that students are not able to find the right field and feel baffled to choose a course because of societal pressure and peer expectations. Career counseling is an essential and effective tool in allowing students to realize their true potential, eliminate their career related issues and find work that aligns with their natural inclinations. Counselors will be able to provide guidance and counseling to the students facing all problems associate to career and update them with the current trends, developments, and available streams. By guidance and counseling, students will be able to know about themselves which will help them in identifying their skills, Interest, abilities, personality, strength and most importantly their area of interest.
A school counselor or a guidance counselor plays a very fundamental role in the career development of the students. Students who get counseling are able to choose between different careers and can plan and prepare themselves for a particular field according to their education, preference, interests, and comfort. Counselors can be regarded as the torch-bearers of the students as they can easily identify and accomplish the career as well as academic goals of the student and enhance their personal development thereby improving their interpersonal relationships. Career counseling can also help out students make sound financial decisions. Counselors help students by teaching them the importance of a step by step process to stability and debt repayment, which allows students to pay off their obligations in an efficient manner. Unfortunately, many students end up with anxiety, depression, and other disorders later in life because of the wrong choice they made earlier on in their careers.
Not only the counselor in the academic sector, but the teacher also plays a pivotal role in shaping and building the career of the students. It is the teachers only who are responsible for shaping the life of the students. In this context, their role is very significant as they know a student better, his strengths and shortcomings that can help them enhance and find the possible change to bring in his personality. Teachers should have a supportive behavior and lend their ears to listen to the problems of their students. The best teachers are the ones who can do the role of guidance and counselor to enhance the overall personality of a student. They can help them start the conversations and let the students open up their feelings and their fears. The role of a teacher as a counselor or the one who provide the guidance is much more pivotal for the students.
To conclude, we can better understand the important role of counselors in today’s education- not just for education but for the child’s whole personality. Career counseling is helpful to students and it is highly advisable that teachers and parents get their students to engage in it at the start of their education in order to get the most out of it.
