Student Counsellor
A student counsellor gives students guidance on planning studies, applying for further studies, developing study skills and doing career planning for after graduation. A large part of a student counsellor’s work consists of giving guidance one-on-one and in small groups and giving lessons. The workplace may be a comprehensive school, general upper secondary school, vocational institution or higher education institution. The work requires interaction and cooperation skills and the ability to get students to trust you.
Comprehensive schools, general upper secondary schools, vocational institutions and higher education institutions.
The work of a student counsellor requires excellent cooperation and interaction skills and a penchant for helping people. The skill to listen and give guidance is essential in this work. The work requires a sense of responsibility and consideration for ethics. In addition, student counsellors need a sensitive eye for students’ problems and the skills to handle them.
Maintaining and developing your professional skills requires that you stay up to date on developments in the field of education. Information retrieval skills play an important role in a student counsellor’s work. The profession also requires organisational skills and verbal and written presentation skills. Networking is also a useful skill.
The ability to tolerate stress and having patience is also beneficial, as a student counsellor can sometimes have a lot on their plate.
To become a student counsellor, you can do a master's degree in education at a university with a major in education science or educational sociology. Universities also offer separate student counsellor studies worth 60 credits, but you need to have a master’s degree and teacher’s pedagogical studies completed.
You can also study at a university of applied sciences to become a student counsellor, but you need teacher’s qualifications in vocational education and training or joint degree units. The scope of separate studies to become a study counsellor is 60 credits.
A master's degree with a major in education, including guidance studies. Or a qualification as a teacher supplemented with separate study counsellor studies. The qualification requirements for study counsellors and student counsellors are laid down in the Decree on the qualifications required of teaching staff.
Median salary
2748 €/mo
Private sector
2589 €/mo
Public sector
3333 €/mo
The data is based on the median income, meaning the amount of salary which is the middle of the salary amounts arranged in order of magnitude.
Source: Statistics Finland's structural statistics on wages and salaries