Picture a bustling nursing home, the activity director running around creating events for the guests to feel at home. Now picture a broken family, torn apart by addiction and divorce. Someone comes in to speak with the children to get their perspective and make sure they feel loved. Switch again to the ends of South Africa, a foreign woman tending to the native children. Finally, picture sitting in the middle of a big purple couch shoved in the back corner of a tiny room, facing the therapist asking questions about feelings.
These scenarios may seem bizarre and unconnected, but they all have the ability to share one common thread: a social work degree.
Social work is an important job that's often forgotten about, social workers themselves our silent superheroes. According to Social Work Today, social workers manage everything from human well being to empowerment. School of Social Work Coordinator of Student Outreach Bruce McCallister serves as one of Indiana University's advisers for students working towards a degree in social work. He believes social work to be an important and powerful career path for students who feel a sense of reward from working with people.
"Use your career for something that really matters," McCallister said. "There are moments where you feel like you've had the opportunity to have a positive impact on a person or community. It's far more important than money, prestige. It’s just those quiet moments where you can reflect back and feel like you helped shape the course of someone's life and you feel like it's going to make a difference for them, leading to a richer, more satisfying life."
The number of social work graduates varies from year to year, McCallister said, and this May he hopes to see a little less than 60 receive the degree. Of those who accept the degree each year, an average of 75% go to graduate school. Occupations such as therapy and clinical work require a master’s degree, McCallister said, but outside these occupations, a master's degree might slightly hinder a career path, but social workers are really only limited by what they decide to do.
"If you want a career where you're making a difference in the people's lives at the kitchen counter or in your community, you will find a place in social work," McCallister said.
Therapy is the most popular direction after graduation, where the majority of professionals working in therapy today received their degree in social work, McCallister said. Working with children is a niche career path for social workers where participants work with children from preschool up to adolescence, working in criminal justice programs to after school platforms.
One of McCallister's absolute favorite aspects of his job is the opportunity to talk with social work majors about all their options for the future, including graduate school, no graduate school, or taking a few years off before graduate school. It's important to lead students to make the decision that will best fit their career path, he said.
"So many students feel this pressure that they have to get a graduate degree," McCallister said. "If students take a year or two after they get their bachelors, get some experience, that can really enhance the experience they have in a master's program and it makes them a lot more marketable."
McCallister recalls students who go to graduate school right after graduation and as soon as they've finished school, sit down with someone with serious schizophrenia and experience overwhelming inability to do their job, even though they might be the most intelligent student.
Experience is a huge help for some students in terms of getting them ready for a career of intense work with people in crisis and extreme pasts. Ultimately, this is what opens doors for a lot of students, McCallister said.
An IU Almun himself, McCallister trusts the school's ability to produce a well-rounded social worker with all the best experiences possible.
"The students who come here get the big ten school experience, but then you have this very intimate major where all of the students get to know all of the professors by first name basis," McCallister said. "Since they go through classes together the junior and senior year, they form a tight group that really forms lifelong friendships and professional relationships as well."
McCallister truly loves what he gets to do for social work students at IU and encourages all students to not let more experienced people convince you that you can't be something, because the greatest gift of being young, according to McCallister, is what you haven't learned you can't do just yet. McCallister loves his students, but he loves the social work field, too, and would vouch for it any day.
"When people are talking about social work, there's a myth that we're all like Mother Teresa and have holes in our shoes and don't make any money and those things just aren't true," McCallister said. "You're not going to get wealthy in social work but you can have a comfortable lifestyle along with a rewarding career. It's not so much a career as it is a way of life. For those students who do well in social work, that's how they see it."
