Vernon G. Zunker

Among the worst textbooks I have read for any undergraduate or graduate course (and I am working on a second master’s degree). The writing is clunky, clumsy, unengaging, and quite ultimately not very informative as it very frequently (much too frequently) refers the reader to outside sources (primarily websites) for more complete information. This also makes it feel as if the writer only had a passing familiarity with the subject matter, or perhaps was even working directly from freshly sourced material that they had only skimmed. The book, on the whole, reads as if it was written either by an undergrad or perhaps a technical writer from another field entirely who was being payed by the word, as there is a great deal of repitition of information (sometimes almost verbatim) both within and between sections.
My understanding is that it is widely used in graduate school counseling departments for courses dealing with school counseling, I would assume because Pearson makes a wide range of premade quizzes and other materials available. However, I would discourage prospective professors from adopting or continuing to use this text. It can hardly be said to be definitive in its coverage of the subject matter, can barely said to be readable, is quite expensive, and can most certainly not said to be useful (only a small fraction of the book is even devoted to issues of school counseling, most is geared toward adult career counseling). As an interesting data point, almost everyone who rated this above 3 stars is outside the US, has an average rating for everything they’ve read of 4 stars and up, and/or is a duplicate profile rating it more than once to drive up the average.… (meer)

I'll admit it, I skimmed the last 2 chapters. But I read a good 430 of the 500 pages of this book, it's being marked as read.

This book...I feel that it could have been so much more for me. Maybe if I were taking this class on a normal timeline (not a week and a half), I would have felt a greater ability to dive in and really digest this book. As is, I don't feel that there was a lot of time for that.

Once again, here is a counseling book that devotes a few chapters to being culturally competent. There was exactly ONE chapter of ethic minorities, all Asian Americans, African Americans, Native Americans and Latinos crammed into one 30 page chapter--don't I feel culturally competent now? Maybe if it had had more information than was given in my multicultural counseling class (the text from that class was cited extensively in this chapter). Sigh.

Overall, I feel that I was exposed to several different models (several per chapter) on career counseling, but I never saw an in-depth analysis of these models. Are they all accepted? Normed for different groups? What are the pros and cons? As this is the ONLY career counseling course my program offers, I feel it should be more in-depth. Help me to find the model that is right for me. Don't just tell me 1,248 models, and hope I remember them all.

I simply want more than what this book/class could offer.… (meer)

I'll admit it, I skimmed the last 2 chapters. But I read a good 430 of the 500 pages of this book, it's being marked as read.

This book...I feel that it could have been so much more for me. Maybe if I were taking this class on a normal timeline (not a week and a half), I would have felt a greater ability to dive in and really digest this book. As is, I don't feel that there was a lot of time for that.

Once again, here is a counseling book that devotes a few chapters to being culturally competent. There was exactly ONE chapter of ethic minorities, all Asian Americans, African Americans, Native Americans and Latinos crammed into one 30 page chapter--don't I feel culturally competent now? Maybe if it had had more information than was given in my multicultural counseling class (the text from that class was cited extensively in this chapter). Sigh.

Overall, I feel that I was exposed to several different models (several per chapter) on career counseling, but I never saw an in-depth analysis of these models. Are they all accepted? Normed for different groups? What are the pros and cons? As this is the ONLY career counseling course my program offers, I feel it should be more in-depth. Help me to find the model that is right for me. Don't just tell me 1,248 models, and hope I remember them all.

I simply want more than what this book/class could offer.… (meer)