Master's in Mental Health Counseling and Counselor Education Program FAQs
Currently, the Mental Health program is a residential program. This means that the majority of your coursework will be in person. Our program does not have a full-time online option for enrollment. Students on the Mental Health Track are required to have more than 50% (33 credits or more) of their classes completed in-person.
Many of our graduates go on to be licensed as mental health counselors in Indiana and in other states. Right now, North Carolina and Kentucky require graduation from CACREP accredited programs for license-eligibility. Ohio requires CACREP if your degree is from a school in Ohio. We encourage all prospective students to check the state government licensing board websites for licensure requirements before deciding to enroll in our program.
This program emphasizes skill-based instruction, where practicum and internship experiences are required for graduation. Students will graduate with a minimum of 700 hours of practicum and internship. Students have the option to add an additional semester of internship. This would be another 300 hours of internship for a total of 1,000 hours upon graduation.
Our mental health students are placed in community settings including community mental health, addictions treatment centers, and college counseling centers. Placements are in Bloomington and the surrounding communities, including Indianapolis.
Every student works with our Field Placement Director to find a placement. The application process generally includes meeting with the Field Placement Director to discuss your program and interests, an application process, and interviews.
Our Mental Health program graduates are license-eligible in the state of Indiana (and elsewhere). In Indiana, our students first pursue the LMHC-A. This is a provisional license that students are eligible for upon graduation of this program. For more information on licensure in Indiana, please refer to the Behavioral Health and Human Services Licensing Board’s page.
Many students do our program part-time. We do our best to work with students to find a schedule that works best for them and their lives. It does get harder to balance work with school when students get to the practicum and internship courses which require dedicated time in a placement. For example, internship requires the equivalent of 20 hours per week. This makes holding a full-time job very difficult.
We don’t typically provide funding for master’s students. However, students are welcome to look for employment opportunities on campus. We encourage the you to look at this webpage for employment opportunities for grad students at IU.
For more information on funding opportunities, please see Indiana University’s Grad Grants Center. Information on graduate assistantships, fellowship opportunities, grants, and student employment opportunities can be found here. Sometimes the program also sends out notices for other funding opportunities. These often come in late spring and into the summer. The School of Education also has a few select fellowships that students are eligible for over the course of the program. Typically, the program faculty make these nominations.
Yes, our faculty are very open to having master’s students work on research projects. Typically, students reach out to the faculty whose interests align with theirs to discuss opportunities. We do encourage this, but it is not required!
Yes, we are accredited by MPCAC which stands for Masters in Psychology and Counseling Accreditation Council. You can find more information on their website.
IU’s Money Smarts Program has a calculator. You can estimate that you will take 12 credits in the fall and spring semesters and between 6 and 9 in the summer. Most students take no more than one online course per semester.
Absolutely! You can read student testimonials here, and you can also fill out this form to reach out to one of our student ambassadors for more information about their experience in the program.