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Coun 620 - Final Paper - Counseling As An Extrovert - DR
Coun 620 - Final Paper - Counseling As An Extrovert - DR
Wilson R. Harvey
Although it has been over a relatively short period of time, my experience in the world of
work has been reasonably diverse. Many of the jobs I have held have a direct and clear
connection to the work I intend to make my career, school counseling and teaching, and in some
way all of these positions have involved a need for strong people skills. My first job – working
as a reporter for a regional newspaper on holiday and summer breaks during my undergraduate
studies - would appear on the surface to have the most distant connection to my stated career
goal. However, the job offered me an opportunity to both investigate intriguing issues and work
with people in a way that could potentially be helpful both to individuals and society as a whole.
During this time, I wrote stories on topics ranging from local sports features to in-depth features
on such topics as the coal industry, education, domestic violence, and health care, amongst many
others. Through the entire process, I learned to tactfully interview anyone from ordinary local
citizens to U.S. Senators, a skill that I have thus far put to good use in my experiences in the
counseling field.
Other jobs I have held have been closely related to education. I spent portions of two
summer youth programs focused on educating and caring for children of low socioeconomic
status. Though I was not paid for the experience, I also completed my forty-hour-a-week
internship as a student teacher at a rural middle school and high school in West Virginia.
over a year and a half I have taught First Year Seminar courses, written lesson plans for those
courses to be used by instructors throughout our department and even across campus, served as a
COUNSELING AS AN EXTROVERT 3
success coach for students on an individual basis, and supervised one of our campus tutoring
centers.
conjunction with my personality type – ENFP – I am inclined to first address the role my
extroversion has played. As I mentioned, each of the jobs I have held has in some way involved
frequent interaction with individuals. The desire to work directly with people, of which I have
long been aware in myself, is one of the key features of extroversion (Sharf, 2018). This is not to
say that I operate entirely in this mode. In fact, with the passage of time I have seen my
assessment scores move from strong to moderate extroversion, a reflection of my growing regard
for introspection. The resulting balance between the two poles figures to be an asset both in
general education as well as school counseling careers, as I quickly but carefully weigh the
(Sharf, 2018) is intuition, or “N,” while my auxiliary process is feeling, or “F.” This too lends
itself well to the fields in which I have and will work, because it indicates a certain level of
schools, where time is limited – intuition is of utmost importance. Crucial decisions have to be
made off of the constantly flowing information being relayed verbally and non-verbally by our
clients/students. The presentation nature of education means that it also is a field in which
intuition is vital. Even the best-laid plans of a teacher can be rendered ineffective by any number
adaptation to the applied effectiveness of the lesson with students. Even as I worked in
COUNSELING AS AN EXTROVERT 4
journalism, I found that my wit was needed as I conducted interviews on controversial subjects
or tried to complete an article on deadline. It was little surprise, then, to find counseling and
journalism clustered amongst the most common careers for ENFP individuals (Sharf, 2018).
Conclusion
Based on the findings of the Myers-Briggs, my impending post-graduation move into the
field of school counseling is a wise one. My extroversion is the foundation for my work in the
field, of course; if I did not prefer to work primarily with people, school counseling would likely
be the least compatible field for me, and instead it is my passion. Like I stated previously,
though, I believe that intuition and feeling – particularly in the form of empathy – will be the
doctorate and shift into higher education as a teacher educator, I believe that a very similar skill
set will apply. As I attempt to blend what I have learned as both a teacher and a counselor to help
mold effective, mental health-informed educators, I will need to constantly be in tune with my
intuition to model the skills necessary for success in the field and make coursework engaging.
No matter what point I am at in my career, though, I see the value that the Myers Briggs can
have for the students with whom I work, potentially helping open them to career opportunities of
References
Sharf, R.S. (2013). Applying career development theory to counseling. Cengage Learning.