by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D. High school students, especially those of you applying to college, it's time to have a heart-to-heart about the meaning of community service. Here's the deal: Chances are, the community you live in doesn't have enough money to pay for everything it needs. Some older community members could use a little company, or some elementary school kids may have nowhere to go after school. The DVDs in the library may need to be catalogued, or the local business owners could use a hand running the town Halloween party. The help may seem a bit random, but it's still n ..read more

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D. Completing college applications can be hard work, work that often runs through the holiday season. Since everyone else is taking some time off, this would seem to be the perfect opportunity to hang out with your family, especially since this could be your last Thanksgiving/New Year/Kwanzmasakah as a full-time occupant of your parents’ home. How could this possibly be a bad idea? “My friend,” says you, “you clearly don’t know my parents, or my Uncle Bob.” Fair enough; it’s time to take back the holidays. Here are the three keys to thriving (not just surviving) this ..read more

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D. You've worked so hard to schedule, prepare, and nudge your high school senior to apply to college on time. You shared that small thrill when they hit Submit with time to spare, and you thought you were all set. Until they got the e-mail. "Our records indicate your application is incomplete. Unless we receive a copy of your high school transcript in the next five days, we will be unable to process your application." At this point, you've decided this is personal, so even though it's 7 at night, you pick up the phone and leave The Mother of All Voice Mails for you ..read more

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D. Along with the New England foliage, college fever is at its peak this week. As seniors scurry about, trying to remember their middle name while making application deadlines, now might be a good time to get juniors focused on what really matters, hoping they can avoid this frenzy next year. Ready? This is about you. A few of the seniors in your school are just discovering this, as they try to figure out how to tell their parents they’d rather go to the local college no one’s heard of, instead of the famous college that admitted them that they really hate. You don’t ..read more

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D. A few years ago, there was a discussion about the value of college— two- year, four-year, even certificates. I wrote a column in response to that discussion, and most of it is below… And in reading it, it seems like it might need updating, in light of new data. It’s clear parents, and even students, are seeing college as a vocational training experience, and not a life-shaping one. I get that; college costs money and for many, the time spent in the classroom is time that could be spent on the job, bringing home money for a household. In addition, there’s a questi ..read more

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D. Seniors, it's the first month of school, and seniors are already in the doldrums. That glow of the first day of senior year is a million miles away, buried under layers of college essay drafts, emails to the teachers writing your college letters, and four failed attempts to remember your school's CEEB code. One college application is in, two more are stalled, and it seems like all you can do now is wait for something to change. And you're right. If you want to be college-ready, it's time to go bowling. This isn't about adding one more extracurricular to your C ..read more

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D. The key to all counseling—personal, academic, career, mental health, college—lies in one goal:  To give the client something new to think about. Consider that for just a moment.   A client comes into our office with a given set of rules and ideas about how the world works.  Since they haven’t come in for a social call, it’s clear they want those rules and ideas to do something else than what they’re now doing.  They want them to make more sense.  To open up more possibilities.  To bring them more peace. How do you know this has ..read more

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D. He was the best combination of head and heart, the kind of student who wanted to change the world, who knew that doing so would take more than just hoping it would happen.  That’s why he went to see the director of our summer studies program one spring, having done his homework. “I was reading an article the other day that said something like 85 percent of all students living in urban areas don’t know how to swim” he told the director.  “Since all the students in our summer program are from Detroit, I was thinking it might be a good idea to teach them how ..read more

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D. I’ve likely told you this story before, but, evidently, it bears repeating. A 10th-grade boy comes bounding out of the classroom when the bell rings and heads straight to the counseling office. “I know exactly what I want to do with my life. I want to go to college, and become a disc jockey.” You ready? The counselor responds thusly. “That just goes to show what you know. You don’t have to go to college to become a disc jockey, and that’s a good thing in your case, because you aren’t college material.” To be fair, this was a while ago, part of those days when ..read more

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D. Many years ago, there once was village in a rural region that was plagued with locusts.  Desperate to solve this problem, local leaders asked scientists to intervene. No problem, said the scientists; there’s another insect that eats locusts, so we’ll just bring in a few thousand of them, even though they are not native to this region.   They bring in the locust eaters, who do their thing, and within a week, the locusts are gone. Trouble is, the locust eaters are still hungry, so they now began to eat their secondary diet.   Straw.   Soon, the en ..read more