Counselor Q&A - Growth, Graduate School, and Guiding Students
Jamon Pulliam’s career trajectory is a testament to perseverance, adaptability, and a deep commitment to supporting students. From his early experiences working with children with special needs to his current role as Senior Associate Director of College Counseling at Viewpoint School in Calabasas, California, his journey has been anything but linear. Initially set on pursuing a PhD in child clinical psychology, he pivoted to admissions and counseling, where he found a fulfilling balance between mentorship and advocacy.
Now, as a newly minted doctoral graduate, Jamon reflects on the challenges of balancing full-time counseling with graduate school and the motivation behind his dissertation and also offers advice for fellow counselors looking to follow a similar path.
Yolanda Coleman: Tell me a bit about your professional background, your current school, and your role.
Jamon Pulliam: I studied psychology at Tuskegee University, and during undergrad, I spent a lot of time working with children with special needs. I spent three summers in upstate New York working at a camp for children with social-emotional needs, and I spent one summer doing research at the University of Notre Dame, working with a professor who was using robotics to lessen social anxiety between autistic adolescents and their typically developing peers.
When I graduated, I moved to Chicago to participate in a new bridge program for graduates of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) through the University of Chicago. I worked at a residential school for children with severe emotional disorders (such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia). At the same time, I was working with an 18-year-old nonverbal girl through an autism home care program. I was also doing research at Northwestern University because I planned to apply for child clinical psychology and PhD programs. My plan was to apply for PhD programs again, but I started to question if it was what I really wanted because I just couldn’t have seen myself in a lab for five or six years. My work with adolescents was also very demanding, so when I started to think about making a career shift, admissions made the most sense to me. I was very active in undergrad. I was a tour guide, freshman orientation leader, and I worked in the admissions office. I started applying and I landed at Morehouse College. As I started to travel and meet counselors, I was always so inspired by how well they knew their students. I saw switching to this side of the desk as an opportunity to bring my two worlds together by working in an admission space while also building more meaningful relationships with young people as I did in my other line of work.
YC: So you were initially planning to pursue your PhD directly out of undergrad but went a different way. What made you decide to circle back to it at this stage in your life?
JP: I actually interviewed for my current school in 2017 and didn’t get the job. When my now director called to inform me, one of the pieces of feedback she offered was that the person they went with had an advanced degree. When I got off the phone with her, I said to myself that I will not let an advanced degree ever be the reason that I don’t get a job. I knew then that I would go to grad school. I had already applied for several programs during undergrad and after, but as I progressed through my career, I became less clear on when, where, what kind of program. Those questions were answered for me when I stumbled across the program at UCLA, and I think the thing that appealed to me about UCLA is that it didn’t require a master’s because if I don’t need it, then why bother? I went to a prospective student event and really liked it. The timing and opportunity were right, so that’s how I found myself there.
YC: How did you broach the topic of pursuing your doctorate with your leadership and receive their buy-in and support?
JP: My director has always been super supportive of my goals and dreams, and I think that’s because I’ve always been very transparent about them. I also had a conversation with the head of school because I wanted to inquire about financial support. It may not be possible, but it never hurts to ask.
YC: In addition to your role as a full-time college counselor and doctoral student, you also coached, planned programming, and advised clubs. How did you balance everything?
JP: Looking back, I don’t know how I did it. It was a juggling act for sure. My program was in person, so at the beginning, I had classes on Thursdays from 6 to 10 p.m. It’s Los Angeles, so you know, traffic. On Saturdays, classes were from 9 to 5 p.m. I was forced to manage my time better. I remember that first year I wrote a lot of my letters at work in the office because when I left, I had homework to do. I had papers to write. In some cases, I even wrote letters in meetings, as I was talking to the kids. If they shared something I wanted to add to their recommendation, I would just pull up the letter and do it then. Things got a little easier the third year because classes tapered off quite a bit since we were mostly writing our dissertations.
YC: Now that you have your doctorate, what’s next?
JP: My dissertation explored how knowledgeable independent school college counselors were with HBCUs. I interviewed 15 counselors from independent schools across the nation and examined HBCU programming at their school, how they support Black students, and what additional resources could be helpful to increase their knowledge of HBCUs. As both an alum and a former employee of an HBCU, this work was near and dear to my heart, and it’s opened a lot of doors. I’m presenting at conferences across the country, and I’ve written probably three to four articles so far with more in the works. I worked on an initiative during the 2024 NACAC conference in Los Angeles where local independent schools sponsored HBCUs to attend. I’m learning and finding ways to kind of spread the information and tell the story. That’s where I am right now. What happens next? Who knows?
YC: What advice would you offer to counselors who may be thinking about pursuing an advanced degree and whether they balance that with their role as a counselor and other responsibilities?
JP: I would encourage them to think about some of the things we tell our students as they’re exploring different things. We want to support our students in many of their endeavors that they come to us with, right? So that same support, that same guidance, that same push we would give our students, give it to ourselves. I think about how important it was to just push myself. Just do this new thing and understand that I would have to balance the same way my students do. I felt like I was in school with my students. I would tell them: “Y’all trying to graduate from high school? I’m trying to graduate from grad school.” It felt like I was going through that journey with them, so the same way that we’re here to support our students, we have to offer that support to ourselves.
Also think about your long-term goals. How can this help me elevate my counseling and my work? Just thinking about all the things that I’ve been able to do since graduating and how it has elevated my school and me professionally has meant a lot.
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