I have known I've wanted to be some form of a counselor since I was in ninth grade. At the time, I didn't know what I would go to school for, and for a short period actually thought "counseling" was its own major. Now, a year and a half into college, I did not realize that 1) I would be a social work major and 2) that it would be so hard.

When starting at Niagara as a freshman, students were put into classes by major, to help acclimate them into college more smoothly. My class consisted of me and seven other girls. We all had a natural drive for social work, and have wanted to do something within this field of work for as long as we could remember. Since then, I have noticed the original core eight students that were social work majors has increased slowly, but by a lot. There are now almost fifteen students in my graduating class, which is a lot for such a small department that now are social work majors, but for some of them not for the reasons that you would think. Some of them actually do have a drive to help people, but there are the few who are doing it because their old major was hard, and social work looked easy.

The first time someone told me they switched to social work because it seemed easy, I actually got quite upset. I thought to myself, 'this is definitely not easy". Granted, as a social work major there are no lab hours or hard math courses, but that does not make this major not as hard. In certain classes, we must fulfill an already decided amount of service hours, lots of papers and tons of policies to become familiar with. So, with that being said, social work is just as difficult as other majors, but in its own way. It is socially demanding, as well as emotionally draining.

I am a firm believer that you should do something you are passionate about, no matter the difficulty. When you tell me you think my major is "easier", I find it offensive, because I put just as much work into it as any other major, so no social work is not your scapegoat.