Social Quirk

OVERHEARD IN SOCIAL WORK

#1
[Introducing ourselves to class]

MSW Student: Hi, I'm Arielle...like the little mermaid...but I was born here before her.
Professor: You were?
MSW Student: The movie came out when I was 4.
Professor: And while she was borne on a drawing board, you were born more...biologically.

#2
[Welcome to social work]

Professor: Enrollments [in social work] are way up. It's called: the economy stinks, let's go to grad school.

#3
[Getting to know each other]

Student (to Orthodox fellow student): "I'm sure you'll find a guy who's attracted to you without seeing your elbows."

OVERHEARD IN SOCIAL WORK

Professor: "It doesn't matter as much that you don't want to have sex with your clients or kill them. What matters is that you recognize that, so you don't do it."

It's nice to be back, starting my second year studying social work. It definitely feels different than the first year - there's a confidence boost after having survived [and at least somewhat thrived] the first year.

There's also a sense that you can do this: juggle your classes, field placement and coursework along with the rest of your life that attempts pay the bills and keep you happy.

One of the neat perks I discovered over the past year was the potential benefits of a MSW degree and how clinical skills can be really useful in life. I know lawyers often talk about how developing a legal mind in law school proves beneficial, even if you decide later in life that a career in law isn't for you.

Let me be clear, I'm glad to be headed towards a career in social work. But lately, I've noticed that my approach to certain situations have changed for the better.

For Example:
I started teaching a biweekly ballroom dance class at a senior center through JASA (Jewish Association for Services for the Aged) last month. A woman in her 90s joined in the middle of the class while we were taking a 5 minute break to rest. She sat down and I introduced myself and (music playing in the background) asked if she wanted to dance.

She gave her name and then snapped back that she knew tremendously more about how to dance than I did (even though she'd yet to see me dance) and this class wouldn't be useful for her.

I felt like my abilities were being called into question and my gut reaction led me a few places:
- I wanted to be passive and say: "Well, if you'd like to join us, you can."
- I wanted to be aggressive and say: "How do you know that? You haven't seen me dance. Show me what you know."
- I wanted to be a smartass and say: "Well, maybe you should teach the class."

But I didn't say any of those things.

In an instant, I decided to take myself out of the situation and think about:
- what might cause someone to say something like that
- that what I was feeling (like my abilities were inadequate) was likely the same thing she was feeling as a 24 year old fella is teaching someone four times his age
- and that my hope in doing this class wasn't to protect or develop my self-esteem but to develop those of the folks in the senior center while providing some active fun and social interaction
- if she is this superfantastic dancer, what a resource! That's it, why don't I do the social work thing - look for strengths!

My ultimate response was essentially, "Wow. Then I'm so happy to have you here. I think we all could benefit from your experience and I know we have a lot of new students to dance who would especially appreciate it."

Suddenly, the crisis was over and we were talking about her dance history. A situation where I could've pushed her from the class was averted and reframed into a positive opportunity.

Has anybody else had experiences like this since they started studying social work?

OVERHEARD IN SOCIAL WORK

Professor: The brain is NOT like a computer. It's like a jungle. It's organic....Computers-are-not-alive! The brain is much more complicated than any supercomputer.

OVERHEARD IN SOCIAL WORK

Student: I was just thinking of Freud.
Social Work Prof: Who?

Freudian Slips

I got an email last night from a reader of this blog who is a prospective social work student. She asked three questions which I'll answer over the course of the next few days. We both thought our exchange might open the floor for others to pipe in with their experiences and/or their questions about the social work program (send away!).

Question 1: Do you enjoy Silver? What are your favorite things about it? I loved your last post.. taking a step back from defensiveness while making a step forward to understanding is the very thing that fuels my passion for this field. It really does make you a better person (don't let me get too preachy! :) but it's true right?). Learning to reframe is hard, but it is a skill that is valuable both in personal life and in our career.

Answer: As a skeptic, I'm always a bit reticent to give anything a huge thumbs up, especially when there's the extra inclination of it being for the home team. Some of the professors I've had have been fantastic - challenging, engaging, supportive.

And as I'm working on developing a project with the school - basically a city-wide database of social work resources with thing like program info/reviews/vacancies and essential documents - it's been neat to present an idea and get the feeling that the university is backing you up in making it a reality.

The Silver School of Social Work is definitely more clinical then other programs, I believe, despite the fact that the course titles and literature seem similar at other universities. I've met more than a few folks at other schools of social work and they definitely seem to have far less developed clinical skills (at least after their first year). The Silver School also does some policy and research classes, which are great but not really why most of us decided to go to NYU. Other schools focus more on these areas.

Any student body is a mixed bag. I've met many folks who are dedicated to becoming strong social workers. I've also met folks who seemed to join a) to work on their own issues b) to make more money than they would as a caseworker c) because they thought this was the cheaper/faster way to have a private practice with a sofa (FYI, it's not) or d) they figured they'd get a Masters degree in something and somewhat randomly picked this (double FYI, one of our professors, who I wouldn't recommend, cited this as her entryway into this work. Yikes.)

All in all, I can say that in comparison to other students at other schools, I feel like I came in a bit shaky on my abilities and now, one year later, feel that I'll leave NYU in 2010 prepared to enter the field with an MSW.

Fellow NYU social work students, what do you think?
What about the folks studying elsewhere?
Any follow up questions, prospective social work students?

This is the second part in a series of questions I received from a prospective social work student.

Question #2: HOW THE HECK DO YOU AFFORD IT [Social Work School]? I hope this isn't personal for you (and feel free to opt out if so), but I am really struggling to figure out how I can pull it off financially, without being in debt up to my eyeballs! Is financial aid strong at NYU?

Answer: Financial aid isn't too shabby at NYU. I'm told that I scored a more than decent scholarship, but there's still tens of thousands left to pay. Luckily I have decent credit, so this will get covered by student loans. But yikes...them's a lot of loans.

Luckily, finding additional ways to pay for school is something I'm pretty good at. My ability to find Jewish related programs to help fund my education (despite being a lifelong atheist of Jewish lineage) has led my mother to make fun of me. But, hey, a big part of social work is teaching people to explore all their resources to avoid crisis (in my situation - debt!).

Here are some places to check out:

1) The first place to look is not so prominently displayed on the School of Social Work's website, but is a great resource. This guide to financial aid has some worthwhile opportunities. Find all the ones you are eligible for and apply away - be sure to apply before you begin your first year. Some of these will pay two years in a row. My options were somewhat limited in terms of what I could apply for. However, there was the Hebrew Union College Loan scholarship available to Jews working in a health-related field. That earned me $3,000 for this year.

2) There's always checking the School of Social Work's website for the occasional job opportunity, perhaps as one of the school's bloggers. There isn't a huge time commitment to this and it pays $1,000 towards my books. If I buy every required text (rather than using the library), it'll come out to just under $1,000. So I don't have to buy books this year.

3) It may feel opportunistic, but you should always look at the communities that you are a part of that can help fund your education. I signed up on the e-mail list at the Jewish center on campus, The Bronfman Center for this reason alone. Lo and behold, there's the Jewish Learning Fellowship - which paid me $500 to take a 20 hour intro to Judaism course, taught one evening a week. The Bronfman Center also will pay $250 to do their Green Fellowship - basically learning about the environment and volunteering in a park for another 10 week course at night.

4) Then there's the option of really planning out how you'll pay for your education by working at an agency that will pay for you to get a graduate degree in social work. If I could turn back time, I might work for the City of New York so I could sign on to the Mayor's Graduate Scholars Program which covers full or partial tuition.

5) I think it's an important part of graduate school to have some self-care in place, as well as doing some outside professional networking and learning to help prepare you for life outside of graduate school. Among other things, I try to attend the occasional social work conference to this end. But I'm not going to pay for a conference, on top of tuition. I'll volunteer. As a result, I got free entry to the Rise Conference last Friday, in exchange for being the event photographer:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

How does everyone else paying their tuition?

OVERHEARD IN SOCIAL WORK

Prof: We're talking mucho cells here."

Discussing how each brain cell makes about 10,000 connections [through synapses]to other brain cells.

This is the final part in a series of questions I received from a prospective social work student.

Q: I am not your NYU prototype. Financially, Socially, and probably not academically. I am a 5th year senior at Auburn University in Alabama (I graduate this December). I am currently in Sociology: Marriage and Family, but also have a concentration in Human Development. My GPA is barely a 3.0, and I haven't attempted the GRE***. I know that NYU encourages those with lower than a 3.0 to apply, yet I read online and have consistently found that it's very unlikely that those scores could get me in to Silver. I have very strong volunteer/extracurricular activities and have proof of my commitment to social justice around the world. After spending 2 summers in Africa, 1 in Guatemala, and 2 in Brazil, I am confident that my time in the field makes me more than qualified to learn at such a high caliber school. Since you are in the school now, do you have any insight on this? Should I even bother applying?

A: I think you should apply if you're interested in going to NYU's Silver School of Social Work. What have you got to lose (except for the $50 application fee)?

Not everyone here is academically inclined. I'd say my biggest concern with some students I met my first year was not their academic abilities but their clarity on whether social work was something they wanted to do, understanding that lifelong learning/training is required.

More than a few seemed to indicate that they signed up for a MSW to handle issues going on in their life or because they imagined working in a private practice directly after graduate school as saw a MSW as a shortcut over a Ph.D. in psychology.

Those are concerning. But as long as you're clear about it, hell ya. Apply away.

It sounds like you have a lot of experiences that could serve you in your application essay for schools of social work, AND as a social worker later on.

If you want to test the waters at Silver, one route you could go is taking a class or two as a non-matriculating student after you move to NYC. More info on that here.

***You don't need to take the GRE to get into schools of social work.

Many professors have been talking lately about the need for our profession to improve its media skills and professionalize itself.

To that end, I'm working on two projects.

1. Video Explaining the NYC Family Shelter Process
Hurray! After months of preparation, I've completed a basic Powerpoint-style video that explains the family shelter process at the NYC Department of Homeless Services PATH office in the Bronx.

The 20 minute video aims to benefit homeless clients, social service providers and advocates who serve them by explaining the PATH process in a clear and detailed manner.

The idea for it came to me while I was a social work intern at the PATH office's Resource Room from 2008-2009. I discovered that many of our clients and the majority of DHS staff (myself included) didn't understand the process families were going through at PATH, as well as the resources and rights available to them along the way. I hope that by creating and sharing the information in this video, families can have an improved, better informed experience either directly from this video or indirectly with more knowledgeable social service providers.

2. An Online Database of Social Service Resources
This project is a bit more ambitious. Essentially, it aims to create an online 311 database of social service resources that includes documents (i.e. applications for public assistance, birth certificates, etc.) that are easy to find, a listing of social service programs (so you can search by service/eligibility/peer reviews/client reviews) all in one place. Social workers, as well as the public they serve, would be able to comment on agencies for improved referrals by all in the social service field, as well as improve the client/worker engagement with a sense that something concrete is easily accessible.

I met with Professor Helle Thorning, the head of field learning, who seems to like the idea and shared it with professors and the SSW Graduate Student Association. I'll update folks on the progress of this. Woo-hoo.

Let me know if you have any ideas for a project like this or if you're interested in being involved in any way (especially tech-saavy folks who can help me construct a database of this kind).