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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 an...
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Carmageddon!

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I don't know much about what's going on in Southern California with the shutdown of the 405 freeway. However, you know your public transportation system is flawed when you need to take an airplane to travel a distance of roughly 40 miles. This is almost the same distance separating the airports in San Francisco and San Jose.

I suppose this is another reason I'm lucky to live in the Bay Area. Between buses, BART, and Caltrain, I have many ways to get around if my car is ever unavailable. Bay Area public transportation is great, and location relative to public transport has played a key factor in my apartment search. My eventual plan is to rely primary on buses and BART to get to work, and use discounted commuter checks provided by my job to save money on fares.

Good luck to everyone that will be affected by the 405 shutdown! I will admit that $4 (with $1 extra for first class) is a great deal to ride JetBlue . Definitely something I would have considered if I lived down there.

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Tips for New Social Work Graduate (MSW) Students

-
Image
  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 an...
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Why I Want To Leave Social Work

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It's been a while since I've updated this blog. I actually wasn't sure if I would actually come back to it, but given recent events I have some free time on my hands and should keep occupied. With that said, let's cut to the chase. I'm burned out. After 10 years of being a social worker, I'm ready to leave the field. A few of the reasons are as follows:  1) Emotional and physical exhaustion  As we all know, social work is an extremely demanding job with high caseloads, emotionally taxing situations, and strict deadlines. Depending on how busy I am and how much caffeine I've had, I'm usually running on high alert so I could finish everything by the end of my shift and sit in traffic. Being in a continual state of stress has started wearing on me, and I find that as I age I'm not as physically and emotionally resilient as I used to be.   The social work profession promotes self-care as a way to prevent burnout. This is nice and all, but how can you ta...
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A Day in the Life of a Medical Social Worker

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