Why Traveling While You Study for Your Counseling Qualifications May Make You a Better Therapist in The Future
Counseling can be a really great career, where you can help countless people in your working life to get over their problems and create a better future for themselves through listening and offering support.
All kinds of people can become good counselors, but one thing that can really help a therapist to be more open minded and have greater empathy towards their clients is to have had a lot of life experience and to have met a lot of different people.
There is no faster way to broaden your mind and meet people from all different walks of life than to travel, and now it is possible to do a counseling degree online, you have the opportunity to qualify while you take some trips and rack up some new experiences of your own.
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Not All Travel is Equal in Terms of Life Experience
Simply being in another place is not really enough to help you achieve your goal of learning more about people and having some experiences you can draw on later in your counseling career. You will not learn much of note at a diving resort in the Caribbean if you only speak to the other tourists like you, although you will probably have a great time!
Plan trips where the opportunity to meet other people is always there, whether it is through staying in communal places like youth hostels in Europe, or through planning activities where you’ll need to go out and engage with local people rather than being shepherded around by a tour guide. In some places, you may not need to really plan anything at all, and can meet and talk to people just by going out in the evening. But make sure you are planning travel where social interaction will be key, rather than activities you’ll just do by yourself or with the people you travel with.
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Review Your Experiences in Each Study Session
You will need to put study windows in during your trip to progress in your online masters in counseling, but to get more from these, as well as reviewing your planned study materials, also take some time in each session to think about the people you have met and the things you have seen or done, and how these relate to what you have learned so far. Make notes. You can even think of people you have met as case studies in some ways, though of course treat them anonymously if you do.
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Talk to People About Your Degree
A good talking point when you meet new people on your travels can be your degree and career plans. You may be surprised how many people will open up and talk about their own experiences with therapy or those of people they know when you tell them about your job goals. This can offer you some interesting insight, both good and bad, about the industry you are going into, and also make for some interesting conversations with new people.
Even though you’re a student traveling, you can still afford to budget your way around the world. And traveling while you study can help you boost your own knowledge of people and the world, and this is all good experience you can apply in your later career.
