Pursuing a Graduate Degree in Counseling

A student recently wrote to thank me for assisting him in a course he was taking and to ask about graduate schools...and whether I thought the rewards were worth the investment of time, money, and effort. I share my reply here...

Emails like yours bring a smile to a professor’s face because they mean that what you have accomplished in “all” your education to date is exactly what should happen in all educational opportunities...that you had most of the questions you brought to the course answered only to be replaced by 1.5 times as many new questions. Of course, these new questions mean that you need to return to the classroom — or read more books and journals or attend workshop or apprenticeship or “whatever" — to get those new questions answered. Of course, as you can see by the formula outlined at the start of this missive, you will always have more questions than when you started, but the trick is to ensure that these are “new questions” that result from the answers you received to your “old questions.” In short, this make learning a life-long commitment that is never completed, and this, in part, is the joy of learning...and the pursuit of wisdom. My efforts to articulate this are likely a bit boring and perhaps difficult to follow so I suggest you read the lyrics to Dan Fogelburg’s song, “The Higher You Climb” – click on http://bit.ly/1D0GN and to listen to the cut from the Dan Fogelberg "High Country Snow" album, http://bit.ly/1OWeHB.

Regarding your questions about graduate schools, I suggest several questions for your consideration:

Why do you want a doctoral degree? There are many reasons for pursuing a doctorate and all are good reasons because they are your reasons. This question is not intended to discourage you, but sharpen your focus. Once you know “why” you want a doctorate, this can help inform the final decision you make as to what type of program you will pursue.

What would you like to do with this doctorate? I am assuming you are interested in a doctoral degree in behavioral health or counseling or some related human service. If you want to teach, you are likely looking at a PhD rather than a PsyD or EdD, although both of these doctorates will enable one to secure a teaching position, although both tend to be more “applied” degrees than “academic” degrees — the exception is EdD when teaching teachers, but I do not suspect that is what interests you. You can always teach adjunct with any terminal degree, but a tenure-track position is likely going to require a PhD.

Why do you want to go directly from a bachelor’s program to a doctoral program? This can significantly increase the difficulty of finding entrance to a program, especially if you are interested in a doctorate in counseling. The competition is immense for PhD programs in clinical and counseling psychology and you will be competing with individuals for admission who have already earned a master’s degree as many people earn master’s degrees in counseling and then pursue the PhD. The upside is that an earned master’s plus any published writing or research completed while earning that degree — not to mention the grades earned that will likely surpass those earned in one’s bachelor’s program — can make the applicant more attractive to a doctoral program. The down side, of course, is that it could be 2 to 3 years to get the master’s and then another 4 to 5 to get the PhD, depending on how many of the master’s credits can be transferred into the doctoral program. NOTE: Some doctoral programs allow a student to pick up a master’s on the way to the doctorate, which can be useful in that the faculty making decisions about who gets into the doctoral program know the applicant who did his master’s in that program.

What do you want your doctorate in? There are a number of degrees that can prepare one for teaching and/or applied work in behavioral health. Which type of degree to pursue goes back to questions 1 & 2 above. You can do a PhD in clinical or counseling Psych; a PsyD in Psych; a PhD or EdD in Counselor Education; a DSW in social work, just for some examples. What degree you pursue should be a function of what you want to ultimately do professionally...and to a lesser, but nonetheless important degree, what you want to study. For example, my PhD is in Counselor Education. That degree, from Syracuse, was awarded by the school of education. Although I was taught “about” counseling, the focus was on “teaching” counseling to future counselors rather than “practicing” counseling — my master’s degree is an applied master’s, i.e., “how to do counseling.” I did not want to be a psychologist so I was not drawn to a doctorate in psychology. Because my interest was not there I never would have been able to remain focused and driven to do the work that was required to accomplish a doctoral degree had that been in psychology.

In summary, the decision to pursue an advanced degree or degrees (master’s and doctorate) is wonderful. Having come to that conclusion, you now need to zero in on just how to pursue your dream and that should be rooted in what “you” want to do...and become. Remember there is no wrong decision, just various forms of the right decision.

Dr. Robert