Just wanted to share a little anecdote:
I'm the graduate assistant for the writing center on main campus. This past Thursday, I had a girl come in for an hour-long scheduled appointment focusing on her biology lab report. She seemed a little frazzled; she had never written in APA format and was really confused with the guidance (or lack thereof) from her professor. I pulled up PowerPoint slides, dusted off my APA manual, and even went to the Purdue OWL's APA guide. We reviewed everything regarding APA. As the appointment went on, she was telling me how out of place she feels at a small school. She graduated from high school with less than 50 people and really wanted to go to a big university, but everyone told her she wouldn't make it. This story sounded familiar - I graduated with less than 80 classmates then headed to Penn State's main campus with 40,000+ people. When she told me she had already applied to Penn State New Kensington, but was worried about where to go with her major, I decided to focus on the bigger stressor in her life, which was not her Bio 122 lab report.
I disclosed the similarities of my high school experience and my transition to a large university. We talked about what she wanted to major in (Animal psychology and communications, but she wasn't sure how to go about doing both), and we talked through some of her options. I told her everything I knew about the Psych and Communications departments at main campus, since she wants to head there in a year. This particular client was bright and bubbly and was very easy to talk to- shame on who ever told her she couldn't make it at a big school!!
An hour and a half later, lab report aside, she looked at me and said, "Thank you. I feel much better about my lab report and my career decisions." While I may not be anything close to a career counselor, I feel like this young girl experienced a disservice whenever any person told her she couldn't. Simply by allowing this student to express her feelings and showing her that she absolutely can, she left feeling better about the life-altering decisions she found herself making, while I felt more reassured of my own career choice than ever before.
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