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Career

7 Things Social Work Students are Tired of Hearing

Emily Janikowski
Madeline Myers
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Akron chapter.

I am entering into my third year of college, and I am loving every second of it. I am majoring in social work with a minor in addiction and sociology. I absolutely love my classes, professors and classmates in my major. I am still unsure of my future (isn’t everyone?), but I know that I love my profession. 

What I don’t love are the annoying and insulting comments about social work. 

So here are the seven things social work students are tired of hearing told with Mariska Hargitary gifs, because that’s another bad-ass career woman who’s also over your shit. 

 

We don’t make enough money.

“So you guys aren’t really in it for the money are you?” “How are you going to pay your loans?” “Wow, you guys do so much and are so underpaid.” “Are you sure you want to make so little for the rest of your life?”

Surprisingly, my classmates and I did not go into this field to become millionaires, but we’re not exactly starving artists. Social work, like many other care-based and female oriented professions, including teaching and nursing, is woefully underpaid for the amount of labor we do. However, we are tired of hearing about it (unless it’s leading up to an offer to pay our loans). For a licensed clinical social worker in the United States, the average pay is $57,000 a year, so we won’t exactly be living on the streets. In fact, it’s possible to make upwards of $70,000 to $100,000 depending on the field of social work and the level of experience.

We’re a “soft” subject.

“I mean how difficult are social work classes really?” Seriously?

While we’re not doing mathematical equations or memorizing body parts, we’re still working really hard writing papers and doing presentations, two tasks a lot of people struggle in no matter how easy they seem on paper. And making sure you say the right thing to client at the right time is a really difficult science that could impact the course of their life. So yeah, “easy-peasy.”

Are we sure we want to go into this work?

“Are you sure you want to be a social worker?” 

No, I got lost and wandered in here. Is this is not the marketing department? 

 

I have no idea why people feel the need to ask social work students if they’re positive about their career, but this a common comment that many of my classmates and I receive. I know that I have never waltzed into an Intro to Anatomy class and started quizzing the students if they were sure they wanted to be nurses and doctors. 

So you’re going to be a baby snatcher?

I was completely shocked the first time I heard this stereotype about Child Protective Services (CPS) workers to my face. First of all, there’s a huge stereotype that social workers only work with CPS which totally discredits all the amazing work social workers do in other fields like counseling, addiction services, mental health treatment, victim services, veteran services, foster care, the prisons, the schools, the criminal justice system and the list goes on and on. Secondly, the social workers who do work for CPS, do not steal babies!

Aren’t you scared of being in danger?

Thank you for being concerned for my safety, but I promise you they really do cover these topics in my social work classes. I have heard horror stories that will make your toes curl, and I have learned how to protect myself and recognize warning signs of danger. Also, I knew this going into the field, so the tenth warning about danger is not going to make me pack my books up and uncover a secret passion for dance.

You’re smarter than that.

I really don’t even know why someone would go up to someone who is happy in their major and tell them that they’re too smart for the career they have chosen. Maybe I secretly look sad all the time. Either way, my classmates and I have heard this countless times from people that we’re too smart to sit around and do paperwork. Literally every profession that’s stereotypically associated with intelligence like law and medicine involves lots and lots of paperwork. And if paperwork means I get to help my clients then, I can’t think of a better way to start the day.

Why would you ever waste your time helping those people?

Oh yeah, those people. Why would you want to dedicate your time and your life helping those people. No one ever says who those people are though. Are they poor people, victims of crime, people with addictions, minorities, children, criminals, etc.? Social work is about serving everyone who needs services and oftentimes our clients are overlooked or degraded by society. And that’s exactly why my classmates and I chose this field. No one deserves to be referred to as those people. 

Emily Janikowski, otherwise known as Em, can be found usually lurking in the depths of the Polsky building as a writing tutor, and when she isn't there, she is curled up in bed binge watching Law & Order SVU. Her passion lies in changing the world, and she hopes to accomplish this through majoring in social work.
Madeline Myers is a 2020 graduate of the University of Akron. She has a B.A. English with a minor in Creative Writing. At Her Campus, Madeline enjoys writing movie and TV reviews. Her personal essay “Living Room Saloon” is published in the 2019 issue of The Ashbelt. Madeline grew up in Zanesville, Ohio. She loves quoting comedians, reading James Baldwin, and sipping on grape soda. She fears a future run by robots but looks forward to the day when her stories are read by those outside of her immediate family.