Why You Should Consider Getting A Master’s Degree In Counseling

We all know how important education is these days. Having a college degree brings you a wide range of advantages, including higher employability and greater earning potential. It’s even linked to better health and wellbeing. More and more people are beginning to see the advantages of studying at a postgraduate level too, with the number of people taking a master’s degree steadily increasing. There are various reasons to go back to college and take a higher degree and many different subjects you could choose to study. For those who wish to embark upon a career helping other people to overcome their personal challenges and achieve their goals, a master’s degree in mental health counseling could be a perfect choice. Here’s why.

It’s a fascinating subject to study

If you’re going to return to college for a graduate degree program, it’s important to choose a subject that you are genuinely interested in. This makes it much easier to dedicate the time and effort to it that you will need in order to succeed! A master’s degree in counseling has a truly interesting curriculum for those passionate about mental health. For example, here is a small selection of the topics you could study:

• Abnormal psychology
• Theories and techniques of counseling
• Advanced human growth and development
• Multicultural counseling
• Ethics and legal issues in counseling
• Diagnosis and assessment
• Career counseling
• Psychopharmacology
• Couples and family counseling

Many programs also give you the option to specialize in a particular area of counseling. For instance, this could be trauma and crisis counseling, addiction counseling, marriage counseling, or counseling for military veterans. As such, you have the opportunity to craft a curriculum that best suits your personal interests and career aspirations.

You can dedicate yourself to helping others

One of the main reasons that people choose to study for a counseling qualification is that they are eager to turn their passion for helping other people into a career. Of course, many different jobs enable you to dedicate yourself to altruistic work. Still, counseling is a great fit for those who have a particular interest in psychology and mental health.

As a counselor, you will be supporting people to feel empowered and overcome the complex emotional challenges that they are facing. This could be anything from addiction and criminal behavior to divorce and post-traumatic stress disorder, and you could choose to work with individuals, couples, families, or larger groups. Whichever particular career path you decide to go down, you will be able to make a real, lasting difference in other people’s lives. It’s no wonder, therefore, that counseling can be such a fulfilling and rewarding job!

You will enjoy excellent career prospects

In addition to the high levels of personal satisfaction a job in counseling can bring, it also offers more material benefits too. As an illustration of this, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the job outlook for substance abuse, behavioral disorder, and mental health counselors is set to grow by a staggering 25% between 2019 and 2029. This is much faster than average and indicates that after graduating with a master’s degree in counseling, you can anticipate high employability and job security levels.

In line with this, the great variety of specializations that you can choose between also gives you the freedom to carve out a career that truly fits your interests, skills, and preferences. For example, mental health counselors are employed everywhere, from colleges, schools, correctional facilities to hospitals, private practices, and health centers. You could even work for a nonprofit organization. Likewise, you can focus on the precise area of counseling that appeals to you the most, whether that’s working with young people, the elderly, people with addictions, veterans, couples, or families. If you set up your own private practice, you’ll also benefit from the flexibility to choose your own working hours and rates.

You’ll build your transferable skills

Of course, studying for a counseling degree builds up your specialist knowledge and practical skills in that subject, but that’s far from all you’ll learn on the course. Going back to college is a great chance to improve a wide range of your transferable skills too. These include communication (both written and verbal), time management, organization, leadership, teamwork, critical thinking, and presentation. All of these will not only be useful in your career as a counselor, but in any other job role, you might go on to have instead. They’ll even be helpful in your personal life, so make sure you take any opportunity to work on them!