College Counseling In The Age of Uncertainty

My college counseling work has evolved since Covid.

Parents in our area – the Connecticut shoreline and Fairfield County – are usually well educated.  So when I started college counseling in the 2000s, my work was often focused on guiding the student through the college counseling process, a reasonable amount of which the parents understood.  In the 2010s, my college counseling evolved to factor in what I call The New World of Work.  Post Great Recession, the unfocused college to career student – which had previously been very common – was increasingly becoming a disadvantage in the post-employment world of college.

Only a decade before, heading off to college “to figure out” the career piece was standard.  Those in their freshman and sophomore years of college would say without too much worry – “no clue what I want to do”.  The lack of certainty regarding post-college employment increased my work in the college to career counseling space.  This area began my shift from working with parents who generally understood the college process but had the sense that an outside expert would work better with their teen to also working with parents to explain how the New World of Work was affecting post-college employment.

Now… the New World of Work is even “newer”!  But applying to college and figuring out how/where to apply has become so different in the past 5 years that most parents are in the same position as their children.  I need to work with them as well in order to navigate the college process in The Age of Uncertainty.

Happy to help.