5 Things All Social Work Majors Know To Be True
"You try to do it all, volunteer, classes, work, extracurriculars and balance a social life."
Every major has those "things" that you understand just from being in the major. A lot of other people look at you strangely when you say one of those things and you think/say "you wouldn't understand you're not a _____ major."
A 2-4 page essay is nothing
In Social Work, we write essays 2 or 3 times the length of this. Our essays are almost always a minimum of 4 pages and sometimes as long as 13 or more. Our essays always have to have at least 3 references besides the textbook and if you forget to mention one of the social work theories your grade automatically goes down.
How to get resistant clients to open up
Being in the major means you learn all these great techniques for how to get someone to open up to you or how to get them to forget about the problems at hand for a while. You learn that playdough is AMAZING for kids who are resistant to all of a sudden give their whole life stories.
Presentations instead of exams
For the most part, taking exams is limited, everything you get graded on is presentations or quizzes. That doesn't mean we don't have finals it just means that our finals are presentations. Or even better we have end of the semester presentations AND a final.
You forget about self care
This applies to most majors, if not all of them. You try to do it all, volunteer, classes, work, extracurriculars and balance a social life. The list just gets longer and longer if you are in a relationship, or working multiple jobs or it could be having to take care of your family. The list never stops and you get burnt out (as we like to as in social work). You stop caring as much about whatever it is you're doing and instead you stress about how much stress you have and you have no idea on how to cope with it.
Applying theories in day to day situations
Any major that uses theories, psychology, sociology, social work and a list of others, we learn a lot of theories. We try not to do it and honestly we don't usually realize we are doing it, but we catch ourselves applying Maslow's Hierarchy or Erikson's developmental stages in our lives. We think oh they must be stuck in this stage of Erikson or they need this before this according to Maslow. It's cool and strange to see all at the same time.
