Exemplar #4

Young Men of Color: Filipino-Black Male

Standards:

Standard 19: Academic Development

Standard 20: Career Development
Standard 23: Advocacy
Standard 25: Individual Counseling

Introduction
The Young Men of Color paper provided me with an awareness of the college and career
readiness and outcomes of students from different race/ethnic backgrounds. This assignment was
given to me in my Achievement Gap-Leadership, Advocacy, and Systemic Change course. It
consisted of interviewing a first generation student that was not of Mexican cultural background.
The student I interviewed was a 12th grade student who identified as Filipino-Black and male.
Once I selected my student, I discussed college and career aspirations and planning. During the
student interviews I asked questions about the students aspirations, college opportunities, and
challenges they have encountered when thinking about attending college. The assignment asked
for me to review data representing the students demographics likelihood of graduating college
eligible, enrolling in post secondary and graduating post secondary institution. I then made
recommendations for on college and career readiness preparation for my student.
Standards
I met Standard 25: Individual Counseling through individually counseling this student
and learning that he was going to be the first person in his family to attend a university. Due to
being a first generation college student he was confused about the process of applying to a fouryear university. As a future school counselor it is really important for me to sit down with first

generation college students and explain what the different types of colleges, degrees available,
and the process of filling out applications. If I wouldnt have sat down to individually counsel
this student I wouldnt have I became of aware struggles he was experience in applying to
colleges.
By providing individual counseling I met Standard 20: Career Development where I
explored career options and degrees that he would pursue at a four-year university. He explained
that he wanted to work for a big company like Nike. He wanted to work in the business
environment but he didnt want to own his own business. We then explored different majors that
he is interested such as Business Management and Entrepreneurship. We then researched
different universities that offer that major. I think it is very important that he was able to identify
a field that he was interested in which allowed me to be able to use the Naviance tool to search
what degree options are available, the career description, how much people in the field get paid,
and the type of job opportunities. As a school counselor I need to be able to have a discussion
with students about careers and have career tools such as Naviance to help them navigate their
career options.
I covered Standard 19: Academic Development by looking over the students grades to
see if he was eligible to attend some of the universities that he was interested. I noticed that he
was not doing well in math, which I then brought up during our counseling session about
keeping up his math grade so that he is able to apply to universities. I also made sure he knew
that a major in business consists of math courses so he needs to make sure he is understanding
the concepts in his math class so that he is not struggling in his college math courses. Informing
students about how their current classes tie into their career and college goals is very important.

Students will sometimes not find their class interesting and relevant to their future field so it is
important for school counselors to help them find that connection.
As a student advocate (Standard 23: Advocacy) I was able to implement
recommendations so that he is able to qualify and apply to go to university. Recommendations
include exploring private universities outside of California. He was planning to just apply to
CSUs because his grades werent at the level that UCs would like their applicants to be. I
recommended that he look at the Common Application search engine and search up private
universities that will take his GPA and that fit the profile that he wants. I also recommend that he
search up information on the different companies that he would like to do his internship in
college to see what they require for him to be able to intern there.
Reflection
I really liked this assignment because it allowed me to be aware of the research about the amount
of students that are African American that dont go to college. I wanted my student not to be a
statistic of students that dont attend. I was able to sit down with the student and explore careers
that he is interested in. I was very happy that I was able to implement some college and career
readiness interventions and be able to support him. As a future school counselor I plan to assist
students that are first generation college students and students of color to attend a
college/university/vocational school. I understand the importance of putting intervention into
place to help with college and career readiness.