Social Work MSW

[onetwothree1]

Hey I graduated with a 4 year business degree but now I want to get an MSW. I have been working with mentally disabled individuals for almost a year now and I feel an MSW would help me gain good career opportunities. My mother has belittled me and told me this will do nothing for me and is a terrible decision.

[ravyn]

I have seen one of your posts before, and now that I have a better idea of what you want/thinking about...

Then I want to tell you that you should try to find out what social work entails rather than simply listening to your parents. According to you, your parents think that social work is about dealing with drug addicts and you get low pay. It's true that social work isn't the most lucrative field; I looked online and they can make around 50K a year as a beginning salary, minimum, with a master's in NYC. If you have lots of loans that might be an issue. However, I noticed that in NYC, it is supposed to increase as you work more years (but NYC is an expensive place to live in). So if you're mostly interested in making a crap ton of money, it isn't for you, but I am sure people can survive.

Social work encompasses a variety of things. You don't have to work with drug addicts. You could deal with children, criminal justice or whatever. You do the research (although I can provide some links, if you want).

What's most important is that you look to see if this if the work they offer is ideal for you, and then you can look at the realities like the cost of an MSW and the culture of the workplace/burnouts and stuff.

Edit: Oh, and your mom can tell you it's a terrible decision... but that's all she is doing. Look into it yourself and then you can decide if it's worth it. You will most likely be dealing with people with serious/depressing issues and on top of that, many social work organizations in the U.S have funding issues that make it a bit harder for people to do their jobs, so be aware of that and ask yourself if you can handle/tolerate the realities.

Edited August 31, 2015 by ravyn