The University Guidance Center complements the Office of Student Development and Services in delivering services to the students. The Center specifically provides advice, support and counseling to all students, as well as faculty members and other employees.

Objectives

As a service unit of the University, the Center seeks to achieve the following objectives:

1.  To organize a fully functional counseling and testing center that would cater to the students and other members of the PLM community.
2. To promote the services of the Guidance Center to the students, faculty members and employees of the University
3. To establish a “catharsis center” where students, parents and faculty can pour their feelings in full confidentiality.
4. To provide opportunities for the students to enrich their social lives through the  development of skills in interpersonal relationship, with the end in view of helping facilitates the maximum utilization of their academic potentials.

Services Offered

Counseling Services

This is considered as the “heart and soul” of the guidance program. This service aims to assist students in gaining deeper self-understanding and awareness of one’s problems and the effective use of the decision process by formulating alternatives and projecting consequences of each that allow students to review critically what has taken place and makes provision for future meetings if they are needed.

Different approaches, skills and theories are implemented by counselors because people and situations are different. Sometimes one or the other is best, and sometimes the combination of techniques produces the most benefit.  These counseling services are the following:

1. Individual Counseling
2. Group Counseling
3. Family Counseling
4. Counseling Special Cases

Testing Services

In many educational institutions as well as employment offices, tests are probably the most widely used specialized techniques in guidance. Tests will be useful as a guidance tool if combined with appropriate planning for individual development. Tests provide “information in meaningful terms through quantitative description”.

These services covers the administration, scoring, interpreting and evaluating results of selected tests such as:

1. Admission Tests
2. Intelligence Tests
   • Individual Intelligence Tests
   • Group Intelligence Tests
3. Aptitude Tests
4. Interest Tests
5. Personality Tests
6. Projective Tests
7. Special Tests

Student Inventory Record

This is a continuous process of accumulating, recording and utilizing information on each student for guidance and counseling purposes and for obtaining a complete picture of the individual.

Training / Seminar / Forum

These are programs designed to  help students discover their innate ability and talents as well as develop their emotional intelligence. One such concrete program is the “Peer Facilitator Training Seminar” held annually during the students’ first semestral break at the Boy Scout Jamboree Site, Mt. Makiling, Los Baños, Laguna. The peer facilitators undergo learning sessions to equip them the facilitative skills as para-counselors in their respective colleges they represent.

Symposium and Forum are organized as information program to tackle important life  issues like Love, Dating and Marriage; Natural Family Planning; Abortion and Contraceptive Methods; Gender Issues and other relevant topics affecting the life of a person.

Placement and Career Services

Graduating students are being prepared by the series of career talks by experts in the different field of occupational endeavors.  They are coached on how to write an application letter, resume and the development of self-confidence in facing interview by the prospective employer. Afterwards, an annual “Job Fair” and In-Campus Recruitment is organized where educational and medical institutions, industrial, commercial, and technical companies are invited to screen, evaluate, and accept the graduating students as job applicants.

Research Services

Research capabilities of the guidance center are conducted in conjunction with relevant educational studies like students’ delinquency problems, teenage pregnancy, faculty-student relationship and others. Researches help bridge the gap that currently exists between theories and practice in counseling. Result of the findings in research will serve as guideposts for guidance and educational planning.