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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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Burnout Prevention: Epic Road Trip 2015!

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Road Trip 2015
July is fast approaching, meaning it's time for my third annual trip to San Diego for Comic-Con! Thanks to convention scheduling, Comic-Con is extra early this year (July 8-July 12). I'm not ready!

To add to the July excitement, my friends at TSG.tv are hosting a Mario Marathon from July 17-24 to benefit St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Initially, my intention was to Amtrak down to Texas after Comic-Con. However, after finding out that a number of my friends are road-tripping south, I decided to take advantage of the time between Comic-Con and Mario Marathon and take a road trip of my own!

Here's my itinerary thus far:
  • San Diego (for Comic-Con)
  • El Paso, Texas
  • San Antonio, Texas
  • New Orleans, Louisiana
  • Dallas, Texas (Mario Marathon)
  • Santa Fe/Albuquerque, New Mexico
  • Flagstaff, Arizona
  • Santa Barbara, California
In the next few weeks, I'll try to post about my planning process from packing, arranging transportation, to booking the cheapest lodging possible (including some free hotels). This is probably one of my most ambitious trips yet, and it's certainly been a learning experience. It's also been an exhausting one as I've spent most of my free time and many late nights working on my itinerary and packing. Travel planning is a lot of work, but I'm hoping that it all pays off next month!

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