I am in 11th grade and I want to be a social worker. What type of classes should I take? And how should I begin to research colleges?

I do Social Work and have a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. Hopefully I will be able to offer you some useful information. First may I say that it is a very honorable career choice.

Now when you graduate high school you choose a major in college. Very few colleges have a major in social work at the undergraduate level. If the college of your choice does not have this major ones that would work toward a social work degree are psychology and human services. Other programs like ethnic studies or sociology might also work towards social work. So your first step is figuring out what you want to major in. Take a look at the colleges you’d like to go to and see which degrees they offer that are similar to social work (if they don’t have an actual social work program). You can then look to see what classes are needed for that degree and apply that to your high school curriculum. You do not have to decide on a major to get into a good college, sometimes it is useful however.

In general though it does not matter which classes you take in high school. It is more important to get good grades, good letters of recommendation, do good on your SAT/ACT which all focus on general studies and not specific classes. Social work does require a lot of communication skills so writing and literature can be helpful. It also requires cultural understanding and empathy so electives that have to do with cultural studies or contemporary issues are also relevant.

You should also start doing some volunteer work in your community. This will help you significantly when applying for college and it will also give you some necessary experience.

To research colleges you should write out a list of criteria. What aspects of college are most important to you. Location, What Majors they Offer, How beautiful the campus is, teacher to student ratio, if they have a population that is diverse, do they have dormitories, do they offer good scholarships etc… For most people location is a primary indicator. For many others it is the campus atmosphere (liberal vs. conservative or party vs. non-party etc..). Once you make your list you can do google searches such as colleges in oregon, liberal colleges, etc…

You also want to consider the admissions requirements of each college you are interested in. This is quite easy to find on a college website. See if you meet their criteria or not.

To research social work more you should do some good google searching and reading. But you should also chat with some social workers to get a more personal perspective.

If you have any more questions I will happily answer. Or if you need me to clarify anything I said so far.

I don’t think I can be much more help than RedPowerLady on this, but I do have some opinions on high-school and college that I hope you’ll consider.

Don’t worry about taking certain classes in high school. High School is mostly a waste of your time. Get good grades to keep your parents and colleges happy, and use your free time to do something that really matters. Your time is yours; it’s valuable, and you can probably educate yourself a lot better than an institution can. Furthermore, you can always do good things for your community (which can include the global community) without the help of institutions. Use your time to be a citizen, and you will go far.

Go out and do social work. Make your own course of study by looking at the curricula that a good college has for social work. Read those books, write emails to those professors to ask them questions about it, and talk to social workers. If you have a local office where there are social workers, write to them and find someone to mentor you. If you can, have your parents help you find ways to do social work in some capacity by making introductions to adults in social work. Find a way to do it, and do not give up. Colleges will respect this more than anything, especially if you can write well about it.

Talking to people is essential. People will tell you the truth when they don’t have an interest in lying to you, and most institutions probably have an interest in making you think a certain way. Your asking us Flutherers is a great start, but branch out into your community and get into a safe work environment where you can see what things are really like and talk to people who have an interest in your understanding.

Best of luck; you sound like an thoughtful and compassionate young person, so you’re probably doing fine.

Here is the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook listing for Social Workers. That page tells you more about the work, the certification that is required, the projected career growth and salary information; as well as providing useful links to related agencies. Best of luck to you!

The fact that you’re asking these questions to begin with shows that you’re on the right track. When I was in high school, there was a lot of emphasis on researching colleges, but nobody really told us how to do it. My friends and I were raised and educated to think that we had to go to these really great private colleges, and anything else would be a huge disappointment. That’s so not true. I went to a public in-state school which had an amazing art program, one of the best in the country. I only found out about this program by talking to the older students in my art class about which schools they were looking at. Talking to people, especially professionals in your field, can be the best way to get your college research started. Many of them will be glad to give you an informational interview, and your school guidance counselor may be able to refer you to some social workers. College fairs are a good way to get ideas, but all their information starts to look the same after a while, because all the schools will highlight their strong points only.

Another thing to think about is how much education you want. My experience in high school was that everyone really emphasized getting into elite four-year colleges, but none of the adults around us ever talked about post-graduate education as a long term plan. You might want to consider getting a bachelor’s degree from a more affordable school if you want to do this, and then getting a master’s degree somewhere really prestigious.

The above answers are excellent, All that I would add is that if you have the choice to do some elective subjects that have a need to engage in personal and group reflection, you might find this really helpful.

seems like a plan to call some social worker offices near you

sounds like you say no alot, good rule of thumb, get yelled at until your done with everybody. I did psychiatric stuff before, and that dude was mean, even women expectorant a social quam to squelch the “what if”, what if you had an idea that was your own.