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Showing posts from October, 2009

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Tips for New Social Work Graduate (MSW) Students

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  Happy start of the school year! Perusing social media, I came across a NASW blog article called “Guide for the First Year Social Work Student”. This post provided lots of great information tailored for new undergraduate students interested in studying social work. I wanted to take that NASW post a bit farther and compile a list of tips specific to graduate students pursuing a masters in social work (MSW). In my opinion, graduate school is a completely different experience from undergraduate, so my hope is that these tips will serve to be beneficial. Tips for New Social Work Graduate (MSW) Students -Don’t worry about grades so much When I was in graduate school, one of my professors told a story about a straight A student who committed suicide several years after graduation. His point was that given the people we need to work with, we social workers need to focus less on being perfectionists (as demonstrated by obsessing over grades and test scores) and work on being empathetic and co
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The name of this blog

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It's the weekend! For this post, I figured I should discuss the story behind the name of this blog. Ironically, I am actually not that cheap. Just like everyone else has a weak spot for something, two of my weaknesses are shopping and eating out. Given that I'm in school right now and don't have much income, I try to do the two aforementioned activities while spending the least money possible. My friends have commented that I always seem know when a particular store has a sale, and can list where all the cheap restaurants are and times and locations of places that have decent happy hour specials. Knowing what my field pays and my personal goals in saving up and having some financial security, I doubt my current shopping and eating out habits will increase much once I graduate and have an actual job. In fact, I should work on eating out and shopping less anyway. The name of this blog is inspired by my boyfriend, who completely blows me out of the water in terms of chea
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Why certain majors are more profitable than others

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The other day, I read an article on the San Francisco Chronicle website which discussed the increasing phenomenon of college graduates having to move home due to being unable to find a job. This particular article focused on three struggling recent graduates - a sociology major, an English major, and a double-major in economics and political science. These individuals expressed their frustrations at not being able to find a job and thankfulness that their parents allowed them to move back home. Now, what struck me about this article was not the article itself, but the comments section. Many readers had no sympathy for these students, claiming that their humanities majors had no practical use in finding a job. Some claimed that if these students had majored in the hard sciences instead of merely fooling around during college, they would have jobs right now. Others stated that their situation was a result of not being intelligent enough to study the hard sciences. A commonly recur
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FluMist

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One of the nice things about this practicum is that when flu season comes around, all employees, volunteers, and interns receive free flu vaccines. Unfortunately, everytime I have tried to get vaccinated in the past three weeks the hospital has been completely out. This is despite the fact that social workers are on the priority list to receive them. Today, my supervisor called the employee health office and was told that the vaccine was available. However, it was FluMist, the nasal spray. My supervisor was wary about getting this vaccine because unlike the normal flu shot, the nasal spray uses a weakened virus as opposed to a dead one. She decided to wait until the normal shot was available, and said that it was up to me if I wanted to get the FluMist vaccine. After reading more information about FluMist on the CDC website and looking at numerous news articles, I was still undecided over whether to take the spray. There seemed to be a number of conflicting reports regarding its
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Cast iron skillet

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Hello! It seems like things are going to be busy for the next few weeks. Next week, I have a literature review due for my thesis class. I also have a number of other papers, presentation, and exams coming up. On top of that, my supervisor is going to start assigning patients to me at practicum. Exciting times! Now, to go on a major tangent. I don't think I've mentioned this before, but one of my hobbies is cooking. While I don't claim to be a good cook by any means, I like to pull up random recipes of foods I enjoy and make them at home. Some of my favorite dishes to make are desserts such as cookies, cobblers, and brownies. Anyway, on the subject of cooking, several people have been telling me of the joys of cooking with a cast iron pan. These include great heat distribution, easy cleaning, a nice non-stick surface (granted you season your pan properly), and a sturdy pan that lasts you a lifetime. Wanting to try out one of these pans myself, I took advantage thi
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Feculence happens

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Every Wednesday, I sit in on patient case conferences. At my practicum, this is where the doctor, nurses, social worker, and speech, physical, occupational, and recreational therapists sit down and discuss each patients needs one by one. The dynamic essentially parallels to that of a corporate business meeting, with the doctor serving as the CEO and everyone else pitching ideas. For each patient, the doctor ultimately has the final say and signs off on all the necessary paperwork. Anyway, during today's meeting we were discussing the bowel problems of a particular patient. One therapist detailed how this person basically saturated a diaper, along with her hand, with human by-product. Everyone in the room looked at her sympathetically and joked about how they hoped she got paid extra for her experience. While these exchanges took place I quietly sat in my seat, in the process of consuming an angel food cupcake and attempting not to visualize what she had just described. Later
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A new beginning...

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Hello, and welcome to my blog! This blog is project I have been putting off for a while now, but how that I've started I hope that I can keep up with regular updates and practice my writing! The main purpose of this blog will be to document by various exploits as a social work student and ultimately as social worker. Additionally, I hope to incorporate a number about different ways I save money. Given that I am entering a profession that is notoriously underpaid, buying things I want at the cheapest price possible has conveniently become a new hobby of mine. While the majority of my posts will pertain to these social work and money issues, I'm probably end up posting other random things as well. I like to keep my options open. Anyway, I suppose I should talk a little bit about myself. I am currently in my final year of a two year MSW program. My subject emphasis is mental health, with a research interest in mental health issues among college aged students. My practicum
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