The Externship A School Counselors Perspective

The Externship: from a school counselor's perspective

Yolanda Duncan, Yolanda.duncan@dooly.k12.ga.us

As part of my duties as a school counselor, I am charged with helping my middle school students develop life, learning, and career competencies. Whether that is teaching them about time management, relationship building or conflict resolution, these social and emotional learning concepts help students become oriented in getting employed but also remaining employed. However, as I reflect on my job of teaching my students on how to become employable, I think about WHO am I preparing my students to gain employment from. Not only do I have to teach my students those key employability skills, but I also have to make connections with employers to hire my students. I have to be engaged in networking with agencies, corporations, and individuals who would be willing to take a chance in hiring my students. My engagement with these employers provides a win-win situation: a win for the students to get possibly hired and a win for me as I make possible long-lasting connections with these employers for all of my students.

This past summer, I was given the opportunity to participate in an externship at a corporation; of which, I gain knowledge on the history of the corporation, the people that work there, and the skills, knowledge, and qualifications to obtain employment there. I was there for two days and within those two days, I was able to network and build connections with those I met. The individuals I met even offered to come to my school/school district to teach our students about the various positions and their responsibilities. In my professional opinion, having the employers in my schools talking to my students give the students exposure to different careers they probably would not have known. It also can energize my students to choose a career just by being exposed to it.

With this opportunity I was afforded, it energized me to be more steadfast in developing my students to be employable but also better individuals. Professionally, I was excited that I can introduce new careers to my students and how their skills can be aligned with certain unfamiliar career clusters. Personally, the externship allowed me to gain an appreciation of those in that line of work just by me spend a couple of days with those in that industry. Leaving the externship, I was truly energized with doing the work of building student life and learning readiness mindsets, but simultaneously, building career readiness mindsets by exposure.

My work as a school counselor is centered around the American School Counselor Association’s Professional Standards & Competencies as well as the Georgia Student Competencies for School Counseling. These frameworks are what drive my approach with students each year as they are being prepared for post-secondary life. Each year I learn new mechanisms on how to reach my students where they are and attempt to get them where they need to be. This year was a guided by the charge from our Georgia School Counselors Association’s president, to “Follow your Butterflies”.

This year, I am learning each day, that my butterflies are centered around getting my students excited about understanding their natural skillsets and how those skills can be used as possible career choices. With the externship experience, I felt energized after making connections with the employers and felt a commitment to engage in future connections with other corporations. These future connections will build a network of potential career opportunities for my students.