Things I Wish My High School Guidance Counselor Had Told Me Before Graduating

I think just about every high school senior meets with their guidance counselor to discuss life after high school. At least that's how my high school did it 19 years ago. Did I get good advice? Not really. Did he help me make the right career choice? Nope. My high school counselor was just kinda there. He was doing the absolute bare minimum to get a paycheck.

I remember asking him specifically what he thought I should do after I graduated. He just looked at me and said, “What do you want to do?”

I didn't know. I hadn't really given it much thought.

“I guess I will go to college,” I said.

He then proceeded to hand me a stack of brochures from local colleges and told me to start applying. There was no counseling on what I should major in to help me land a good job after college. There was no discussion of what types of jobs I might be interested in doing, either.

There was no guidance or counseling to speak of.

I wish my guidance counselor had actually taken an interest in his job and talked to me about which college majors would lead to jobs that payed well. I wish he had told me about majoring in one of the STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) fields. Instead, I ended up majoring in history. Yes, history. I love history, but no one ever told me it wouldn’t lead to much of a job. Or any job, for that matter.

After graduating college, I found out the hard way that no one in my area was hiring people with degrees in history. It was almost as if I had wasted four years of my life learning about ancient western civilizations and American military history. Not knowing what to do, I started taking classes to get a teaching certificate while looking for teaching positions at local high schools. Of course, at the time, no one was hiring. In fact, most schools were downsizing, laying off teachers left and right.

I wish my high school counselor had told me I could have had my college education paid for by the U.S. Government if I had just joined the National Guard. I'm sure you've seen the ads. Serve just one weekend a month and two weeks a year. If I had done this, I could have taken college classes that would have been paid for through the G.I. Bill while earning some cash on the side. I also could have been an officer after graduating. He never told me how incredible the military experience would look on a resume.

What if college wasn’t for me? I wish he had told me about the many great-paying jobs that don’t require a college education. I'm sure he would have just told me to apply at a grocery store or go work in the coal mines. He could have told me about getting a welding certificate and going to work on the pipelines making $100k a year.

Realizing that my teaching career was going nowhere fast – and this time armed with a little more knowledge – I did what many people do in my situation: I went back to school. Having already completed the basic classes like algebra, english, and humanities, I was able to graduate again in only two years with a second bachelors degree in accounting. Accounting has been the most beneficial degree I have completed. I was able to work in public accounting with a small accounting firm and later managed an entire apartment complex.

If my guidance counselor had just cared a little more, I might not have wasted the first six years of my adult life.