If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that we all benefit from support, human connection, and advocacy when we’re at our most vulnerable, especially during challenging times. This is the heart of social work. Social workers work alongside communities to reduce suffering, tackle injustices, and reinforce safety nets. Social work needs people like you!
Here are three inspiring reasons to major in social work and join the profession.
Think social work is only about counselling? While some social work graduates certainly do go on to support clients of all ages and backgrounds through clinical care, social work is so much more.
Social workers use the principles of social justice and human rights to shift and transform systems that no longer serve society. They transform organizations and inform change to policies, giving people who have been silenced a voice – and challenging discrimination through a lens of equity, diversity and inclusion. Social workers amplify knowledge from those who have gone unheard.
Once you have a social work degree - you have countless job options. Registered social workers provide counselling and support to people, from young children to the elderly, cancer survivors, those struggling with addictions, or mental health. Whether you choose to take your practice of humanitarian support across the world or in your own backyard, you’ll make a positive impact within your profession and your communities.
Perhaps clinical work isn’t your path - use your social work degree to become a policy analyst, researcher, program coordinator, or launch a career in community development. The social work discipline connects the social sciences and humanities to health sciences. Graduates go on to exciting careers in communications, information technology, government, and library sciences. As a social worker, your communication skills, problem solving abilities, and empathetic leadership qualities are transferable and in-demand.
Sure, artificial intelligence might go on to write popular songs, transform scientific research, and translate languages in real time, but there will always be people in distress who require human compassion and personal support for healing. Social workers work closely with people with complex needs and provide outreach, long-term and hospital care, homelessness support, and life-saving assistance to veterans.
By being fully present with people, social workers build and contribute to real-world, intimate knowledge that shift policies and structures in the most helpful direction.
