Why Career Counseling Is Needed As Part of College Counseling

By General Education Advice
We thought we did everything right.”
Two well-meaning parents from the Boston suburbs expressed in near unison.
Their son Adam had just dropped out of college. His reason was simple and complex: “I don’t
know what I want to do so I feel it’s a waste of time.”
That simple answer does not unpack the complexity of the confusion that he was facing.
A generation at a crossroads, I get it. When I started this work along the Connecticut Shoreline, we were in rosy times, at least for suburbanites in the 2000s, prior to the Great Recession. 
A couple years prior, I started Career Counseling Connecticut
I did so because many of the young men and women that I knew from Guilford, Madison, Old Lyme, Essex, Old Saybrook and East Lyme had found themselves in mismatched careers.
The Great Recession and the 2010s added a layer of financial insecurity that increased my work to those of all ages.  Still, my main focus was on those in their early twenties.
Now I urge parents to consider the high school to college transition (investment) to be the high school to college to career transition (investment).
Today’s parents of college-bound teens and young adults find themselves navigating a radically different world from the one that was merely twenty years ago.
The New Economic Normal
Parents are also contending with inflation, market volatility, and recession fears, making the financial commitment to higher education even more stressful. Meanwhile, the job market is in flux. Traditional career paths are giving way to the gig economy, hybrid work models, and automation — all of which demand adaptability, not just a diploma.
In such an environment, relying on outdated assumptions about college and career is not just unwise — it can be costly. Families need modern strategies tailored to real-world economics, not generalized advice.
My work often begins with students in early high school. Ensuring that students develop excellent “work character”, as well as good grades, and then helping parents with the increasingly confusing path to post-high school, which had almost always been college as a default.
My continued work relates to ensuring that students transition from college to career effectively.
Start early.  You and your children will not regret it.