As I have prepared for graduate school, I have gotten an interesting range of reactions to social work. The most negative interaction occurred in conversation with a medical student. We had just met and were talking pleasantly until he asked me what I did. When I told him I was about to start a social work masters, for a moment I could see a look on his face that said, "you're doing WHAT? Why would you ever want to do THAT lowly thing?" However, knowing this was hardly a caring response, he mastered himself, and we continued to talk agreeably.
Admittedly, in comparison to the rigors of medical school, an MSW must seem pretty tame. Two years in a grad program, not including a thesis, and a licensing exam. Hardly on the same level, right? Now that I think about it, I can remember a similar disdain on the faces of my sociology professors in college, as they talked about social work. After all, sociology requires "hard thinking" and, if you really want to go somewhere, getting a PhD. In comparison, social work is hardly rigorous. Or is it?
More-so than some social sciences, Social Work is an applied field. The theoretical base is mostly created by other fields such as sociology, psychology, anthropology and political science. Although we study the theories, the point in social work is not the theories themselves, but what they mean when you come face to face with the people you are trying to help. When you look in the face of a suffering person, how do you work with them to reach a better quality of life? Although this does not necessarily require years spent in academic thesis-writing or fact-memorization, it requires a different, just as essential, process of education.
When I spoke to veteran social workers, I got some very positive perspectives, but admittedly others communicated things like "this profession rung me dry, but now I'm stuck in it" and "its full of disappointments and barriers, but every once in a while there's a victory that makes it all worth it." Easy? Lacking in blood, sweat, and tears? Hardly. Although I can say without hesitation that school is going to be plenty challenging, the real challenge comes on the other side of school.
Unfortunately, I think the people we seek to serve sometimes have a reaction to the profession as a whole that is also negative. To the poor and underprivileged, social workers sometimes seem TOO powerful. Aren't we the ones on the other side of the phone or the desk when someone applies for welfare? Aren't we the ones handling the caseloads for medicare and medicaid? We seem to hold so many facets of their well-being in our hands. Unfortunately, social workers seldom, if ever, set the limits on that kind of aid. Although we may be the ones to tell a person, "yes" or "no," the reasons for those decisions are usually determined by government or agency policy, often putting us in difficult positions.
Undoubtedly the most common casual objection to social work I encountered, however, was the question, "you DO realize social workers don't make very much money, DON'T you?" Sometimes I wanted to laugh. As a culture, do we REALLY think that is what matters most? Well, how often do we express the value we give to something by how much we're willing to pay for it, or automatically assign more value to something more expensive? In the case of a profession, how much do we honor people according to the level of salary they receive? As far as I know, the underlying reason for social worker's salaries is that we tend to work for organizations with tight budgets and serve populations on the least-advantaged side of the spectrum. However, does the fact that our salaries are lower than, say, psychologists or psychiatrists, automatically cause us to be seen as less valuable in the eyes of society? While in some cases the answer is yes, thankfully most of my conversations have included a very positive response to my chosen profession.
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