Master of Social Work - Virtual Information Session

Stop.

So I'm and just to be clear, I'm not going to monitor the chat at all because it typically disrupts the flow. So if you have something that needs to be interjected, please just let me know.

OK. Thanks again.

Sounds good.

No.

Hi.

Hi.

1.

Alright.

Thanks so much Jen, much appreciated.

Welcome to everyone who is joining us here today and and a special welcome to everyone who will be joining us at a later time when this video is posted for us. As was mentioned, my name is Doctor Robert Barney. I am a faculty member here at Stockton University in the MSW program. I've actually been in the program since almost its very first start since it's inception in 2009, so I'm just going to be spending the next few minutes.

All right. Well, good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us.

Going over some of the details about the program, providing you with some highlights as well as some information about our admissions process, one of the first things that I wanted to chat with you all about is, in a very broad stroke, attempt to try and give you information about what social work is and why you might be interested in pursuing a career in social work. So basically, social work is a profession that's focused on helping disadvantaged.

Populations, our actions are.

Supported and guided by a code of ethics that's been put together by our National Association called the NASW. That code of ethics emphasizes the importance of helping those who are disadvantaged and helping them to address their unmet needs, focusing not only on some of the challenges and the deficits that they face, but emphasizing the strengths of those clients and using empowerment based approaches to help them.

Address the challenges that they are encountering in their lives. Since we're focused on working with disadvantaged groups, a lot of our focus is on advocating for social justice, especially among those who are disadvantaged and those who have been marginalized. So if you think about it, social work operates not only at the hands-on level, providing direct services to clients, but it also focuses on the much bigger picture, the macro.

Level advocacy that will help to provide systems of care needed for those client groups.

Now, for those of you who are interested in pursuing a career in social work, one of the big things that I want to note is that this profession gives you broad career options. And the reason why I say that is because social workers operate in a variety of different contexts and venues. Oftentimes our students will go on and they'll graduate and seek employment in places such as hospitals, in schools, in the child.

My name is John Redmond ski and I am the assistant director. Associate director, excuse me, need a little more coffee today, I guess. The associate director of graduate admissions here at Stockton University. And today I am joined by my colleague, Doctor Robert Barney, who is one of the faculty members in the Master of Social Work program here at Stockton University. And he is here to share more about the program and tell you a little bit about why you should consider applying for our program here at Stockton.

Healthcare system. We've had some go on to work in the field of International Development. They work in community and grassroots empowerment. As I mentioned before, political advocacy becomes a strong component of what we do. And for those who choose not to work in venues such as Trenton or Washington DC, They can still engage in advocacy in those places as part of their employment. In places like hospitals and the child welfare system social workers work in.

So without further ado, I'm going to turn things over to you. Doctor Varney. Thank you so much for joining us.

Prisons and the criminal justice system, we've had social workers who operate within the military. And then another big one is the field of clinical social work, which I wanted to spend just a few more moments talking about because in recent years we've seen a kind of an uptick and an increased level of interest in becoming a therapist or what we term within social work as a licensed clinical social worker, now a licensed clinical social worker.

Or an LCSW is someone who is able to offer counseling and therapy. Social workers who complete their master of social work degree can go on to become an LCSW or licensed clinical social worker at a later point in time. This LCSW license allows you to work independently as a therapist.

Within the New Jersey, LCSW's can apply and be reimbursed through health insurance companies, Medicare as well as Medicaid. So you can work independently and you can seek reimbursement for the therapy that you provide.

I do want to note that I've, I've commented about New Jersey licensing. The licensing differs between states. The different, the requirements are slightly different, but that's how it operates within New Jersey. You can actually look on our website for links or information about licensure in other states. For the most part it's pretty comparable, but you do need to know that it's slightly different if you're coming to us from a surrounding state like Pennsylvania, New York.

Or Delaware, now a licensed clinical social worker, as I mentioned that somebody who's able to offer independent counseling and therapy. So in order to become an LCSW, you actually have to complete your application for license after you graduate with your MSW degree. So it's not something that you automatically get and it's not something that you can automatically get immediately after you graduate with your MSW. You actually have to clock 3000 hours.

Of supervised counseling before you can be awarded an LCSW in real terms. What that means is that you have to work for about 2 years being supervised by an existing LCSW, and there's additional requirements about their certifications on how long they've been in practice and those sort of things. So again, you want to pay attention to that, but in the end you have to have your MSW and you have to have two years of supervision under an existing.

LCSW, you also have to make sure that you have 12 hours of coursework focused on clinical social work. Our MSW program offers a variety of courses that help you to meet this requirement. So we offer courses in clinical social work such as cognitive behavioral therapy. We have advanced practice courses that are focused on this. We have a couple of different psychopathology courses and the list goes on from there. So we do provide you with.

Coursework that will help you to make meet that requirement if it is something that you want to pursue. And I also want to note that a number of our graduates have gone on to complete their LCSW's. So this is something that our graduates have been successful in pursuing in the past.

Now, our MSW program has a number of different faculty and staff affiliated with this. As I've mentioned, I've been a faculty member in the program for for quite a while. This slide just provides you with a list of some of these other instructors. If you have any interest in checking out our credentials, our areas of expertise and so on, you can go on to our website and look for some of that. You're going to find that we have faculty who are interested in the child.

Welfare system. We have expertise in that area. Others who focus on clinical social work. I myself have focused on international social work and International Development. We also have a couple of field staff who are listed at the bottom of this page who helped to facilitate the field placements that our students participate in.

Now another important thing that I want to highlight about our program is that we offer all of our classes on the Atlantic City campus. Stockton University has an Atlantic City campus that's been there for a couple of years now. Before that campus, we actually had another campus operating in Atlantic City and the MSW program has been there since 2009. So it's a nice draw. In some ways, you can think of yourselves as studying beachside, but the more important thing that I want to emphasize.

About being placed within Atlantic City is that we are offering our classes within a location that has need for social welfare services, has need for social welfare and social justice advocacy and where some of our students actually go on to complete field placements. So it's really strategic in terms of getting us there in Atlantic City and being there offering classes in the heart of that urban context.

Now, I also want to talk with you a little bit about the purpose and the aim of our program. So when you think of our program, broad strokes, what we're focusing on is helping to develop graduates, students who go on to become leaders in the community, and people and social workers who have a lifetime commitment to upholding human rights, respecting human diversity, and working towards.

Social justice, and this really relates to our practice specialization. We have a practice specialization. You might think of this as almost being aligned to a concentration. Our practice specialization is helping to prepare students to work with diverse individuals, families and communities. This is really a unique feature of our MSW program. You're going to find there are a number of other programs that.

Have a practice specialization that focuses in on things like community development.

Or advanced generalist practice. We've chosen to help train students who are committed to and who know how to work with diverse populations. So you're going to find that regardless of whether you are taking a course in diversity.

Or whether you're taking a course in policy, practice, research, whatever area that might be, all of those classes have an explicit focus on working with diverse populations. So again, it's not just about attending one of our advanced cultural competency classes and learning about diversity. You learn about how to conduct research among diverse populations and how advocacy needs to be done to help address racial disparities.

Gender based disparities and so on in your advocacy work.

Now our program.

Has a cohort model and I'll explain a little bit more about that when I get to some of the different part time and full time options. We have a core group of full-time faculty who work with us. And another important highlight just has to do with when our courses are actually offered. So as you heard the where is in Atlantic City, but in terms of when we offer courses, we have Monday evening courses and these are offered.

And hybrid style, and what that means is that some of those classes are going to be face to face while some of the classes are going to be online. So those Monday night Sessions are a hybrid where you get a blend of face to face and online classes.

Wednesday evenings we also have face to face classes. Those begin at 4:30 PM with our field placement seminars from 6 until nine. We also have a regular class slot, so students are in class learning face to face on Wednesday evenings.

On Saturdays we have classes all day that run from 8:15 in the morning until 2:45 PM in the afternoon. Those are face to face classes. There is a one hour break during the lunch hour, so really it's a class in the morning and a class in the afternoon. But that just gives you an idea of when you can be taking classes with us. Includes Monday night, Wednesday night and Saturdays during the day our curriculum.

Has a variety of different core courses. We also have electives, and we do have a required field component. Students on average are expected to participate in clocking field hours where they're doing hands-on social work in the community at a real agency doing real practice, and it equates to about two days out of your week for the time that you're in the program. Our accrediting body considers the field.

Placement to be a signature pedagogy so the hands on field work or internship is is specific to social work and it's a necessary and required component for an MSW students education.

If you have more questions about field placements, I suggest that you reach out to our field coordinating staff or field coordinator and the assistant Field coordinator who will be able to help provide you with more information. But in a nutshell, they do help to identify and link you with agencies where you can actually do your field placement. So you're not going to be on your own for that. Now. I'd mentioned accreditation a little bit earlier, the MSW.

Program at Stockton University is accredited by the Council on Social Work Education. This is a national level accrediting body and what this means is that after you graduate you will be eligible to pursue a license in social work.

We have been accredited since 2009, since we began the program.

Now, I've talked to you a little bit about our program aim. I've talked to you about when and where classes are offered. I've talked to you about our practice specialization. One other highlight or feature that I want to talk to you about has to do with some of our elective courses. We have elective tracks within our program where students can complete an elective track in topic areas such as leadership and management as well as in clinical social work. I've mentioned to you a little bit.

Earlier the clinical social work has been kind of a hot elective track in recent years. So we're finding more and more students are interested in completing courses in those areas. And again these are courses such as trauma focused social work, cognitive behavioral therapy, psychopathology.

Addictions and substance abuse, and the list goes on from there.

Now, we also have some different options that are available in terms of full time study versus part time study. You can study as a full time student or you could study with us as a part-time student. And it really depends on how you enter our program that will determine which track is most appropriate for you if you are a student who has completed a bachelor's degree in social work.

From a CSWE accredited institution, you are eligible to apply to our program as an advanced standing student. And basically what that means is that you're able to do our program in about half as much time. The reason for that is because the first half of our program, the content reflects what you would have gotten during your bachelor's degree in social work if you were coming from another discipline, if you have a bachelor's degree in something like sociology.

Business, criminal justice, education, something else like that. Then you are eligible to apply to our program as a traditional student. And what that means is that if you are full time enrolled with us as a traditional student, you would be required to complete the program in two years in full-time study. If you wanted to pursue a part-time option, then you would complete our program in three years of study, as I mentioned, advanced.

Handing spends about half as much time with us because there's half as much coursework. If you studied with us full time as an advanced standing student, it's just one year. If you study with us advanced standing part time, you can break that up over two years.

All right. So why Stockton? Why Stockton? In comparison to other schools, other programs, one of the things that I'd emphasize for you all is that Stockton offers small class sizes. So that's one of the things that is a strength of our program. You're going to find that you have a lot of hands on interaction with our full-time faculty members who are teaching the courses. We do use a cohort model where you progress through the program with other students.

You are in your overall cohort and what that means is that there's a sense of camaraderie and team building that's developed as part of that overall cohort model. You're also going to find that our tuition in the MSW program is competitive with other MSW programs within the state of New Jersey.

Another big strength of our program, as I mentioned before, is our practice specialization. Given our focus on working with diverse individuals, families and communities and the diversification of society and the anticipated future diversification, this will be a strength and something that assists and helps you in your future social work career.

Her faculty are supportive. As I mentioned before, you can go through check out our areas of professional interest and expertise.

And and find out a little bit more about who we are, what makes us professionally unique and how we contribute to our program.

Other strengths, we have not only full time as well as part time, not only full-time options, but as we also have part time options and we are linked to the Community here in Atlantic City. So again, just kind of a rehashing of some of the highlights of our program.

The next thing that I want to cover with you is our admissions process. A lot of you are wondering, OK, well, you've heard about the program. So how do you apply? How do you get in?

I do want to emphasize a couple of important features just from the perspective of the MSW program itself. When you apply, you're going to be expected to have already completed your bachelor's degree. Now, if you're currently in your senior year of your bachelors program, you can apply and your admissions would be contingent upon successful completion of that program.

If you want to apply for advanced standing, then you would need to have completed your bachelor's degree in social work. You're going to have to complete an application. There are fees associated with that application. Your GPA overall needs to be above a 3.0. It's not the one of our specific requirements. We expect you to have completed 3 letters of recommendation and have those submitted as part of your application file if you are applying for the advanced.

Meeting program. We want to make sure that at least one of those letters is from someone who has supervised you. In practice, they supervise your practice or your field placement so that they can speak to your abilities within field. We do have what's known as a rolling admissions process, so if you do apply early, your application can be reviewed and potentially accepted early. I don't want to highlight as well that our application deadline is February 1st of 2023.

That deadline is for the fall 2023 semester.

And what I'll do is I'll turn this over to Jen and she could talk a little bit more about the admissions process from the perspective of graduate admissions.

Thank you. Yes, I'd love to and thank you for offering me the opportunity to share that.

Um, so a few things. You know, Doctor Barney had asked me to share with you all. What are some of the frequently asked questions when it comes to submitting an application? So giving you a couple of tips and tricks and things to think about as you're looking at this process. Number one deadline. Huge.

Deadline is the deadline, so please make sure you're cognizant of that it is. This recording is taking place on January 11th. There is enough time to complete your application for that February 1st deadline, but if by chance you were watching this after the fact, then you would be looking to apply for the following year, and some of the requirements could possibly change year to year, but more than likely they'll be somewhat similar, so keep that in mind depending on when you're watching.

Um, to to keep in mind, the GPA is something very important. And if you're currently finishing your final semester, you want to make sure that that final semester grade stays high. That's important. The letters of recommendation, you know, Doctor Barney had mentioned that one of them being needing to be from someone who has supervised you. In practice. I always like to, you know, kind of also explain to people these letters of recommendation should be also from people who can speak towards your ability to be academically successful.

So even though maybe you have a next door neighbor that you've known for 20 years and that they can talk about your credibility and your character, they may not be able to talk to your academic success. So focusing on having recommenders who have had you in class again, who have supervised you, who can talk to your leadership abilities, your communication skills, those are things you really want to focus on. I also encourage applicants to reach out to your recommenders before listing their e-mail on your application.

Um.

Let them know you're going to list them. Ask them if that's OK first. That's that's always really, really important. You don't want that to be a surprise and because we have had that happen, unfortunately. So let them know that you're going to check with them if that's OK and that they will be writing you a successful letter of recommendation.

So keep that, you know, do that before going into the application. What you'll do is all you'll need is their e-mail address. The way our application system works, you'll put in their e-mail and then we automatically send them the letter of recommendation that they do electronically. So it's a really simple system. You don't have to collect anything from them or do anything other than input their e-mail. But again, please let them know that you're going to be doing that before you do it.

As far as your resume and also your, there's an essay component as well for all of our applicants. For those, you'll see them once you get once you start the application where you load them. But I also recommend to people, before you get to that point, please have someone proofread it for you. You know, it needs to be your own words. It needs to be your own work. However, making sure there's no grammatical errors is really, really important, and this is a really important essay, a really important resume.

And making sure that it looks perfect is critical. So take that time. Have someone look over it with you just to make sure that there's no errors. That's always a good thing, you know? For example, if you're applying to multiple programs, make sure the one you're sending the Stockton has Stockton listed and not another institution. Just food for thought.

And again, we're going to give you our contact information at the end of this session. And as you're working on things, please don't hesitate to reach out. Myself, anyone in our department, anyone in the social work, Master of Social work department, we're here to help you through this process, and if you have questions, we'd be happy to answer them. We can't do your application for you. However, we're happy to talk through things with you or if you have any trouble with the system, anything like that, we can help you with that process. So anything you think I missed?

That sounds good, doctor Barney.

Awesome.

I think you covered all the main points there. That's great. Thank you.

Hi.

Yeah. One other thing though. You know, I do want to add one piece that I think was really important and comes up very frequently. You were talking about finances in the slide before this. I do want to share with everyone who's watching that. If you go to the social work, master of social work website, on the left hand side there's a button that says financing.

Finances in that drop down, it gives you the full breakdown of what the current cost is to attend here at Stockton by credit, whether you're in state or out of state.

Underneath that, there are also tabs that tell you a little bit more about scholarship opportunities. And then there's also information about our graduate assistantships and our graduate coordinator positions and some research opportunities. So check all of those out because Graduate School is expensive, right? But you know, if you love what you do, it's totally worth it. But if there's ways that we can help you look through how to finance your education, we want to help you do that. So check out that tab. But it just made me think about that as you were presenting the last slide too.

Great. Thank you so much.

And I really do appreciate Jen jumping in and speaking a little bit about the program from the perspective of her office from graduate admissions and to talk about my perspectives as a faculty member from within the program. But having this diversity of of perspectives can be really helpful. And that actually helps lead me into the next slide, which is about our alumni. As I mentioned before, this program has been around since 2009 and over the years we've graduated almost 500.

MSW students, our alumni work in a variety of different settings, as well as a variety of other different positions within the field of social work. Again, we work in in a variety of different areas, but I thought it would be helpful just to share some of the perspectives of our alumni and students who have graduated from our program just about our program and how it's helped to prepare them for careers.

And social work. So our next slide is actually a video where you get to hear from some of our alumni.

OK, so again, you know, you've gotten here some of the perspectives of our alumni, some of the people who have been through the program who can offer a different perspective on what it's like in our program and how it's helped prepare them for their future careers. The students who are currently enrolled in our program are actively engaged not only in classroom context and in their field.

Placements, but they also participate in Community Action through the MSW Student Club Alliance. So it's the MSW alliance. The students who have participated in this student club have been very active in helping to address social justice related issues, both within the local community as well as within the broader field. Last year we had a number of students who actually actively campaigned and participated in.

A rally to help support the Ukraine. They participated in obtaining donations for the Atlantic City Rescue Mission. They've participated in a variety of different efforts, and they actually were awarded the 2022 Student Involvement Award based upon the actions and the activities that they participated in during that year. So you'll find plenty of opportunities to get involved with your classmates and get involved in the local community.

To address needs and local issues.

OK. So that's it in terms of my formal presentation and discussion. So what I'd like to do next is open up the floor to answer any questions that you might have about our program.

Awesome. Thank you. I'm also going to go ahead and Click to our next slide. For those of you who are watching live and also who may be watching the recording and this is our contact information, please feel free to reach out to us. Doctor Sinnin is the program chair and her contact information is there and then our glad office information is there too.

For those of you who are alive, please feel free. We'll give you a couple of seconds to copy that information, but also to type any questions you have into the chat. We'd be happy to answer those live. And again, if you are watching this recording, maybe at a later date, please feel free to use the contact information there. Go to our website. You can schedule a one-on-one appointment with me. We can do a virtual appointment. We can talk on the phone. We can meet over zoom. You're also welcome to stop by the office.

But we can answer any questions you have, especially with the due date for this application approaching very soon.

So again.

What I recommend is that if you all have questions about the application process itself, about the software and those sort of things, please make sure to reach out to the office of Graduate Admissions. If you have any sort of questions about our program, the curriculum, questions about field, please make sure to reach out to the MSW program chairperson.

Yes.

This is a great partnership and that's one of the things I love. We all work very closely together and one of the slides that stuck out to me in your presentation as well today was talking about like the highlights of this program and the first and foremost being the faculty. Our faculty here at Stockton and specifically in this program are amazing. They're just wonderful to work with. Our students, rave about them. I can talk about it from a perspective being their colleague. I love working with the folks in this, in this program and all of our all of our programs, but.

What?

Hi.

That is definitely one of the benefits of coming to Stockton is that relationship that you get to build with the faculty here at Stockton. The other thing again, Atlantic City campus is absolutely gorgeous. If you have not been there before, go, go take a drive down. Parking is fantastic. It is really easy down there. Lots of great places to eat right around the campus on top of everything else and it's just a really good place to learn. The academic facility there is really new state-of-the-art and it's a beautiful facility. If I were a student, I would love to take classes.

There maybe one day in the future I'll do that again, but it's just a really, really good place to to be and to learn, so just wanted to throw that in.

We've given some time to our live participants. We doesn't look like we have any further questions. So again here's our contact information. Take that down really quickly and if there's anything else we can do, don't hesitate to reach out. We thank you all for joining us today. And for those watching the recording, thank you for for watching this and getting to the end of our session. And Doctor Barney, thank you for taking the time for for doing this presentation and sharing your words of wisdom and your love for this program on top of everything else. We appreciate it.

Thank you so much, Janet. Thank you for helping set this up and facilitate the dialogue today.

No problem. Alright, I hope everyone has a great day. Take care.

Thanks again.

Bye, bye.