A school counselor is a very important and valuable position in any educational system. A counselor can help a student deal with current personal issues, academic challenges, and prepare and plan for the future. For those that are interested in working with students, becoming a counselor could be a great option. There are five characteristics that are typically shared by great counselors.
1. Be Friendly
One of the most important characteristics of a school counselor is the ability to be friendly to students. School counselors need to be able to gain the trust of students in order for them to be the most effective. In order to form a connection with a student, counselors likely need to be able to be friendly. Once they have formed a relationship with a student, a counselor can start to help the student.
2. Authoritative When Necessary
While it is important for a counselor to be friendly with a student, they also need to be authoritative at times. A counselor will need to be able to provide direction to a student to be sure they are making the right choices. At times, this will require the counselors to be authoritative and even punish the student for mistakes made.
3. Ability to Evaluate
A big part of any counselors job is to make accurate assessments about their students ability. This will help a student to better understand what their options are after graduating. Based on these assessments, a counselor can help a student to start preparing a plan for after graduation. This can include painting target colleges to apply for, finding a full-time job after college, going to a trade school, or give me a number of other things.
4. Ability to Promote and Sell
Another important skill in characteristic that all counselors need to have is the ability to sell and promote their students. One of the most important task that a counselor will have is helping a student get into college. In some situations, this requires a student to get a good reference from a professional in their school. A school counselor is often the natural choice. A good school counselor will be able to help highlight the skills of a student and sell the target university in order to ensure the acceptance of the student.
5. Organizational Skills
The best characteristic that is important for any school counselor to have is the ability to stay organized. Most high schools across the country today only have a limited amount of resources to dedicate to counselors. Because of this, many counselors are tasked with being responsible for hundreds of students across the school. To ensure that all students are being properly represented, a counselor will need to have a sufficient organizational system in place. This should help to and sure that they are able to provide the best guidance possible to as many students as they can.
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In conclusion, anyone that is interested in working in education and likes dealing with students should consider becoming a school counselor. For those that are interested in becoming school counselors, there are five characteristics that are typically shared by affective counselors.
