social work and stuff, yeah.

Social Worker:

Hi there, 

Absolutely! I completed my MSW from University of Southern California in 2013. 

Check out this post I wrote a few years ago about graduate school for MSW programs. Since you will have your BSW, I’d certainly recommend looking for an advanced standing MSW program, which means that you will have less graduation requirements due your BSW, as opposed to someone with an undergraduate degree in another discipline. 

As for loans/scholarships, that may also play a factor in your grad school choosing. Most schools will list information about available financial aid on their school websites, including program specific scholarships/grants. As for loans, graduate school loans work similarly as to undergraduate, if you are seeking federal loans (i.e. from the Department Education), which are offered referred to as Stafford Loans. The biggest difference between the graduate vs. undergraduate loans tends to be that you can borrow more money as a graduate student, but you will begin to accrue interest immediately. 

I really do enjoy social work! It certainly has its challenging days, but through and through, it’s been a very rewarding career for me. I have a passion for it, and when you love what you do, it truly makes a difference in life satisfaction. 

The biggest difference between social work and psychology is the way in which the practitioner seeks to understand human behavior. Psychologist tend to study the individual and acknowledge external forces, but their primary intervention will almost always be changing the individual and looking towards internal means of behavior change. 

Social work, on the other hand, really practices from a view that integrates micro (individual), mezzo (families/groups), and macro (policy, culture, laws, etc.). Social workers believe that change can come from impacting any of those spheres, and the field of social work really is driven by a passion for advocacy and social justice.