I'm in a No Win Situation...

Let me explain…

I’m currently working to be a “social worker”. When you say that to just about anyone other than a social worker or a person going to school in social work, you are viewed as wanting to be someone that takes parents’ kids away from them. They are obviously referring to Child Protective Services (CPS). Now while CPS workers ARE in fact social workers, this is not the limit, or even the majority of the social workers in the working world.

So, from the outside looking in at me, I’m viewed as “bad”….a child-take-awayer…

Granted, up until the fall semester of my senior year during my undergraduate career, I too thought this of social workers. CPS, right? But actually, no. And had it been “yes,” I would have been a “no” for the program…HA! There is actually MANY options for a LMSW (licensed masters social worker), and one of those options is JUST what I want to be….a therapist! An LMSW can go into private practice just as a psychologist, however, we aren’t paid as much as they are (but we don’t have to go to school as long as they do! HA!)

Unfortnately, being a young-therapist-at-heart in the Social Work program puts me in the “bad” group. Here is what I mean…

When you come from a psychology undergraduate background and go into a social work masters program, you immediately pick up this stigma as “one of them.” Being “one of them” is consequently what I am doing. “One of them” is in reference to the students that come into the social work program wanting to go strictly into direct therapy practice upon completion of their degree.

Many times, these are the students that don’t care about policy, who don’t care about research, who don’t care about non-profit organizations, etc. The ones that come and go through the courses because they “have to,” especially the policy classes, the Macro classes (that’s the community practice classes, teaching you about working in community agencies, such as non-profits), etc. The students who aren’t devoted to alleviating poverty, who aren’t interested in protesting for gay/lesbian rights, who aren’t interested in improving the foster-care program, etc. [Note: it isn’t that these students aren’t FOR these things, they are most likely for alleviating poverty, etc., but they just aren’t going to focus or spend time working in that area.]

Who these students are, however, are the ones who go to the school to attend the classes and most likely know only their classroom buildings and that’s it on campus. These are the students who don’t stop to read the flyers on the walls in the hallways that are advertising the volunteer service opportunities and the departmental get-togethers. Those who represent “one of them” are the ones who are here to get their masters degree and get out. They pay their money and want what they paid for and nothing else. They most likely have no interest in volunteering their time, or getting involved with the departmental committees or in the departmental activities. These students are here on a mission to get their degree and start practicing therapy.

While these students aren’t doing anything “wrong” in limiting their involvement to coming and attending the classes they are expected too, they are not viewed as the “prize student.” In the end, those who typically come from a social work undergraduate degree and are dedicated to being that caseworker in the homeless shelter, or being that administrator at the community adoption agency, they are most likely viewing me, as well as the other direct practice wanna-be therapist majors as “one of them.”

So, from the inside looking at me, I’m still viewed as “bad”….a psychology undergraduate student looking for the “easy” route to private practice…

Whatever the case may be, I’m here on a mission….and to answer the question my friend Chucky T asked me in our last office visit together, “yes, I’m still going to be able to do what I want to do with this degree,” stereotyped and all.