Hard time saying no. (grad school.)

[not_alice]

@olivesmarch4th

A valid question. I think most people think immediately of clinical social work or case workers when they hear ‘‘social work,’’ but there is a lot more to the field than that. MSWs do a lot of different things, and one of them is education administration and program management. She’s essentially doing what she studied to do.

As to why she stuck with Penn, she said a lot of people graduate and find they don’t want to leave the community. A lot of faculty members across the entire university are Penn graduates. It’s a very insular place. On the one hand, that can be a negative, because diversity of perspective is important. On the other hand, as a result they’ve got excellent resources in some very specific areas of concentration. Penn is, for example, THE place to go to study evidence-based treatments for mental health. Cognitive psychology was born and raised here. While I’m not currently rubbing elbows with their psych department, if I was in the Ph.D program I would be free to do so, as one of the hallmarks of the Ph.D at Penn is it is deliberately very interdisciplinary. You are widely encouraged to make a ‘‘home away from home’’ in other departments.

!

first, let me say that I am sure you will enjoy and do well at either school. So all this is academic so to speak.

I don’t quite buy the bit about why she stayed though. On the one hand, I recently looked up undergrad classmates on Facebook, and was surprised to see how many of them are faculty now at the same school (between 25-30 years later)

I agree MSW, especially at that type of school is going to provide training in administration, and at least a hint of policy. But she is not administering social work, she is running a recruiting office. she seems to have foregone all her training to stay “in the community”.

That seems weird to me - not that she liked it enough to want stay, but that the school facilitated it. OK if a liberal arts Penn undergrad helps out in the admissions office a year or two until she figures out what to do with her life, but this? Her MSW skills, expensive as they were, are not necessary for her job. Either she is swimming in money and it is not a factor, or her job is a trade for her education perhaps?

It is not like there aren’t literally 1,000 agencies in Philadelphia alone, let alone Camden and other nearby places that wouldn’t love to have a MSW from Penn to help with either clinical or administrative work. Even on campus, I am sure there are opportinities to use her MSW and stay in the community, and if not there, then at Thomas Jefferson Hospital, etc.

Maybe one explanation is that she is in a holding pattern to pass GRE so she can move to a PhD program somewhere, and the school is being kind and made a spot for her for a year or two? That I can see. But you said she graduated 5 years ago, right? Hmmm.

Maybe I am reading too much into it, but something doesn’t smell right to me. she used precious educational resources that someone else could have used, and then tossed it away immediately, and worse, the department seems to be facilitating it.

[Spice_Weasel]

@not_alice

Maybe I am reading too much into it, but something doesn’t smell right to me. she used precious educational resources that someone else could have used, and then tossed it away immediately, and worse, the department seems to be facilitating it.

While I understand your misgivings, my perspective isn’t quite so cynical. First of all, I think social work, and what a social worker does, is a lot more broad than most people realize. A person who graduates with an MSW may very well be going out to do clinical work, or serve with a nonprofit to help the homeless, or rally communities. But an MSW is just as likely to work in an advanced administrative position at a school or doctor’s office, to be a program director at a mental health clinic, or even to work for a private company in a business capacity. We do all kinds of things. It’s possible for two people with an MSW from the same program to have areas of study and careers that look nothing at all like each other. That’s why it’s such a tug-of-war to decide. The field of practice I originally applied for at Columbia was essentially a business degree intended to be used for management of nonprofits.

With that in mind, I think it’s highly likely that her training did prepare her for a job like the one she has now. The little blurb I found on her indicates that she has extensive experience as a program facilitator in educational arenas. She didn’t originally plan to work in a recruitment office until she became involved in an international recruitment program as a grad student and realized how strongly it played to her strengths. It sounds like she then began laying the groundwork for recruitment while she was still an MSW. Since all kinds of organizations need recruiters, including nonprofit ones, this makes sense.

Social work is as much about a shared ideology as it is anything else. She works in the recruitment office because Penn shares her view of social justice and its role in the world at large. She no doubt recognizes what a great help she can be to identify and assist other students who want to make the biggest social impact possible. I mean just imagine graduating from a program you feel a close connection to, and being asked, ‘‘How would you like to be a part of the future of this program?’’ Her job, in essence, is to help seek out, nurture and shape the next generation of social workers. Just because she’s working on the big picture in an administrative capacity doesn’t mean she’s not a social worker. The ‘‘how’’ in this case does not seem nearly as important as the ‘‘why.’’

Anyway, that’s how I think of it. I also have a nasty habit of always thinking the best of others’ motivations, so take that with a grain of salt.

What about Amtrak from 30th Street station to New Brunswick? I used to go Baltimore to New Brunswick and that was less then 2 hours. IIRC, there are no stops between Philly and Rutgers. SEPTA and NJT are local trains, right, stopping in eery 2 bit village?

Thanks for this wonderful suggestion I hadn’t even considered before. The train does indeed go straight from Philly to New Brunswick. It seems like it would shave 10 minutes of the commute for my husband, though unfortunately a 30-day pass costs $918 per month (:eek:) which is way over our commuting expense budget. And I thought coughing up $315/month for NJ Transit was bad!

[not_alice]

@olivesmarch4th

With that in mind, I think it’s highly likely that her training did prepare her for a job like the one she has now. The little blurb I found on her indicates that she has extensive experience as a program facilitator in educational arenas. She didn’t originally plan to work in a recruitment office until she became involved in an international recruitment program as a grad student and realized how strongly it played to her strengths. It sounds like she then began laying the groundwork for recruitment while she was still an MSW. Since all kinds of organizations need recruiters, including nonprofit ones, this makes sense.

I generally agree, but she could have received sufficient training in recruiting administration with a lesser degree, and learned the social work particulars on the job. Now, her expensive top-notch training is possibly lost as a benefit to to society. Maybe she realized it was not for her, and this is the next-best available option, I dunno, but whatever it is, I don’t think she is being honest with you. Not that she is obligated to, but it doesn’t smell right. Like I said, she could have gotten an equivalent administration job at virtually any non-profit for 50 or 100 miles around, yet she stayed put. hmm. and why was that job even available fo her? Was there someone before who conveniently left, or was it created just for her? What are the qualifications of similar recruiters at other MSW schools, if there are any?

Social work is as much about a shared ideology as it is anything else. She works in the recruitment office because Penn shares her view of social justice and its role in the world at large.

None of the MSWs (at least a dozen) who I knew who worked at the agency my gf used to work at ever said such a thing. Nor did the Executive Director (2 Ivy League degrees) or the members of the Board I worked with on marketing the same agency. In the real world, it might not turn out to be like what you are being taught, keep that in mind.

Her job, in essence, is to help seek out, nurture and shape the next generation of social workers. Just because she’s working on the big picture in an administrative capacity doesn’t mean she’s not a social worker. The ‘‘how’’ in this case does not seem nearly as important as the ‘‘why.’’

Maybe, but I think probably not. Her job is no different then any other director of Admissions of any school - being a grad or even trained in the subject matter are simply not necessary. Recruiting is a sales job - I have done it myself in other contexts - and you can not expect every sales person or sales manager, to be a subkect matter expert, they don’t need to be, they need to be persuasive.

Maybe this woman is persuasive, I assume she is good at what she does because her academic pedigree makes it likely that she is driven IMHO. That she would be driven, yet get off the ride there is what I wonder about. More than jsut her, since this thread is about you, I wonder if the department itself has a history of driving people to the end of their interest in the field or not. This person is at least visible to you - what about the others over the last 10 years or so? How many bailed and are no longer active in the area of their studies, compared to the norm for other similar schools?