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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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A new beginning

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Wow, it's been almost a year since my last post! I suppose time flies when you're busy. Let me summarize the events of the past year:

-I completed my MSW program last May. While I am relieved to be done, there are times when I miss the student lifestyle. I suppose contributing to this feeling is the fact that...
-I moved home. Considering I didn't have a job lined up upon graduating, I took advantage of my parents' generosity and moved back home. While this is meant to be a temporary arrangement, my parents do not want me moving out until I secure a full time job. Moving home has certain been an adjustment, as I enjoyed living on my own. However, the biggest benefit is that I'm saving tons of money by not paying rent (my parents refuse to accept rent money, telling me to save it instead).
-I landed a per diem job at a hospital. After three months of obsessively searching and applying for jobs, I was finally hired by a staffing agency. I currently work at an acute hospital as a medical social worker. While planning discharges and addressing multiple patient issues can be exhausting, I find that my days go by rather quickly. Overall, I am content with the work I do and happy that my salary is higher than my initial expectations (which were really low). Currently, I am working full time hours as one of my co-workers is on leave for a few weeks.
-I am still applying for jobs. Ideally, I would like to land a full time job with benefits so I can move out of my parents' house already. However, I am not in too much of a hurry to sign away the next 30 years of my life just yet. There are a few things I'd still like to do, such as travel and dedicate time to hobbies I've been neglecting because of school. When I feel ready (and the right job comes along), I'll move out. Ideally, I'll have saved up a decent amount of rent money from not having paid rent while at home.

Anyway, that's my life update. Now that I'm not busy with school, I'll see what I can do about updating this blog more often!

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