Gloomymoon

I have a BA in Psychology and took a bunch of science pre-requisite courses intending to go for a second degree in Nursing or a graduate program in Occupational Therapy. Neither profession particularly excited me but meet the criteria most important to me (helping others, job security) and pay well. Despite this, visions of myself working as a therapist keep coming up for me. I feel that counseling others is my greatest innate strength, and I take great interest in listening to others and helping them overcome inner turmoil. I wasn’t interested in psychological research or medicine, so continuing down the psych track isn’t appealing. I was happy to learn about LCSW working as talk therapists, and the potential to earn more than LMHCs. What makes me hesitant to pursue the field is... - i live in NYC and worry about salary, ability to save, take vacations, etc. - none of my extracurricular experience or work experience is related to SW so I don’t know how I’d be accepted into a MSW program at this point - i need to continue working full time on the weekdays - other SW jobs don’t interest me as much as counseling, my interest in SW is primarily because it looks like the fastest way to become a therapist. I’m afraid that I would grow to hate the field before achieving LCSW certification after hearing so many stories about burn-out. Thanks for reading, I’d appreciate any advice you have for me. Settling on a career path has been a struggle for me, but I’m 26 and anxious to start heading in the right direction