Why I Want To Be A Counselor Essay

Why I want to be a counselor?

Shakeyla Boulware

South University

The beginning

I believe the decisions we make early in our lives impacts our futures vastly. Even as a little girl I knew that whatever career choice I chose I wanted to be able to directly impact others. That desire sets me on the path to mental health counseling.

Why I want to be a counselor

While attending undergrad, my major changed numerous times pulling me in different avenues, however that desire that burned in me never wavered. I began my undergraduate studies as a Biology student. At the time I wanted to be a pediatrician. The more classes I took the more I knew this career field was not fulfilling. I then changed my major to early childhood education with the hopes of fulfillment, because of my love for children.

After interning at an elementary school and helping with lesson plans I knew rather quickly that being a teacher was a career path I did not want to pursue.
Still not quite knowing what I wanted to do with my life I changed my major to criminal justice.

The change of my major also brought on a difference in curriculum which included psychology courses. At first, I was irritated at the amount of general education courses that needed to be completed before fulfilling the criminal justice degree requirements. I took my first psychology class in the fall of 2010 and from that point on I was captivated. I took more psychology classes ranging from developmental psychology to the psychology of personality. I began taking so many psychology classes as an elective, that I added psychology as my minor.

The different psychology courses began to pique my interest. It was intriguing to understand how the mind actually works. It was amazing to learn about the different theoretical approaches to counseling, because I always thought counseling was the act of telling someone

how to fix their problems. I was fascinated in what made people tick. I wanted to learn everything I could about why people act the way that they do. I wanted to work in a career field that would help me acquire the skills needed to understand human

behavior.
I worked at the Department of Juvenile Justice as a Correctional Officer, where I saw my fair share of strange and uncommon human behaviors throughout the years I was employed there. I would often ask the juveniles why they behaved in the manners in which they behaved, and why they chose to commit the crimes in which they committed. I would ask these questions due to my curiosity about human behaviors and why humans behaved in such uncommon ways. The most common answer I got from both the female and male juveniles was their home life was not the greatest. They would state I had to take care of myself because my mother and or father was on drugs, so they had to do whatever was necessary to survive. I remember thinking to myself no parent is behaving in the various ways that these children state.
Once I left the Department of Juvenile Justice I became employed with the Department of Social Services as a Foster Care Case manager where my views changed drastically. I was able to see the family in its entirety not just the minor child(ren). I began to understand how the family dynamics influences behaviors in each family member differently. This key component helped me to understand the behaviors of my clients and their reaction that often lead to impulsive destructive behaviors. “Family systems perspective holds that individuals are best understood through assessing the interactions between and among family members. The development and behavior of one family member is inextricably interconnected with others in the family” (Corey, 201, p.404).