I look for professional development opportunities
for the school year. I work in the Los Angeles area and have found quite
a few this year. The usual conferences like the CSU Counselor Conference
and UC Counselor Conference are great to learn about updates about those
specific colleges and network. However, I like to attend conferences that
will provide something new in the areas of personal/social counseling and
college counseling. I am a college counselor, but have had no formal
training in the area. Yes, I did learn mostly everything in the field,
but I love to hear what others are doing.
I found workshops, offered for free, by the Los
Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE). The workshop series is called
“The Counselor’s Resource Network.” I
have met some really great high school and middle school counselors at the
workshops. Some of the topics of the
workshops are suicide prevention, homeless and foster youth, transition youth,
and data. I cannot wait to see what the May workshop has in store. LACOE also offers workshops about bullying
prevention, PBIS, gangs, crisis management and a few others for a small
fee.
Most recently, I attended the WACAC Share, Learn,
Connect conference because I am always looking for ways to better my college counseling
skills. The college admissions
perspective is held high on a pedestal with these organizations and that is why
I attend these conferences. If I am
looked at as the expert in a field, then I want to have the knowledge. There’s two sessions that stood out for
me.
Harvard, Berkeley, or Bust…
The presenter is a college counselor from the
private company Collegewise who is paid to work with students on the college
admissions process. He also has college
admissions experience which I have found is a plus in the field. Makes sense.
I liked his approach because he encourages students to research where I
feel students think I am a magical fairy, superhero, who just knows
everything. Although I am flattered,
students should research where they will possibly end up in college. If it were up to me, students would apply to
the University of Alaska (a fascination of mine). He gave great advice such as have students
look on Wikipedia to see the famous alumni.
Of course, I see this as a starting point.
Resources:
www.payscale.com-
look at majors and careers that pay and the value of a college degree.
Colleges that Change Lives
FISKE Guide to Colleges
Princeton Review
Review different websites such as Forbes to learn
about the quality of teaching, career prospects, graduation rates, and low
levels of debt and the Center for Measuring University Performance for academic
research.
I do give students suggestions on what colleges
to research and have them do the research on their own. However, I will do things differently from
now on in the beginning stages of research.
A great tip is having profiles of the colleges available for students to
read. This will get them thinking about
different colleges. Plus, this will also
give them ownership of the process.
Out of State Colleges…
Regional Admission Counselors of California
(RACC) is an organization of out of state colleges that have representatives in
California. They spread the word on well
known and some lesser known colleges.
This session interested me because many of my students go to local
colleges. There are pros and cons to
going to a local college, but there are so many colleges out there. The reasons why students may do this is
because of the lack of knowledge. On
RACC’s website I found some great resources to assist students in their college
research process. This will be
especially helpful in my junior college counseling meetings next year.
RACC will also come out to your school to do a
college fair. Our annual college fair
takes place in the fall. I may change
things up a little bit and do an out of state college fair this fall.
Another highlight of conferences is visiting
different college campuses. The
University of Redlands in Colton, CA hosted this conference. I have heard great things about the
university but being there in person brings everything to life. The university is gorgeous. It reminds me of Loyola Marymount University,
a little smaller and more classic buildings, but so beautiful with the
combination of grassy areas and buildings.
The neighborhood around the university is residential with some lovely
homes.
Next year, I hope to attend the annual WASC or
NACAC conference. I had the opportunity
to network with a counselor from Victorville, Palisades and Riverside and who
have different roles and situations at their schools.
See you in the next blog!
