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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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