How do I keep myself hopeful after reading multiple posts of negative feedback in a profession I'm going into?

Talk to some actual workers in the field that you know and ask them. You should pick people who like their jobs.

I know at least half a dozen social workers. They are underpaid and have a lot of stress, but all 6 love their jobs. They get real satisfaction of helping people better their lives.

My wife has been in one form of social work or another for close to twenty years.

Stress is very high and the pay has often been poor, but she loves helping people.

Every bunch of years she gets burnt out and has to change jobs. Same field, but the change of scenery rejuvenates her.

How do you keep yourself hopeful? Keep your goals in mind. You don’t do this for the money. You do it because you like helping people and you get a sense of satisfaction from doing that. As long as you make enough to live on, you’re cool.

Talk to people who are successful in the field you are interested in. They provide more meaningful and positive feedbacks for you to consider before you plunge into the profesion of your choice. Good luck.

It depends on how much you want to earn. Looking up average salaries for social workers, this site says that the national average runs from $28,744 to $41,0158. Healthcare tends to pay the highest, topping our at $44,332. If you truly wnat to help people, is that sufficient compensation to make you happy doing it? Can you deal with the frustration that you may want to provide job training, or support medical analysis in case of a person who seems depressed, and you are unable to get the system to agree that’s a good course of action?

Social work is hard because of all the barriers you’ll face given how many of the systems in place to help people are utter failures. However, once you have experience and you find an organization that is a good match for you, you will feel great: stressed, but great. I often say it’s a lot like parenting.

I think all you need to do is think about how you personally would feel doing that – does helping others make you happy? Worst case, you try it out for a while and if it doesn’t work out, try something else.

I don’t have any personal experience in social working, but I do know someone who’s been in the field for a very long time. She enjoys it so much, its almost a passion; a conduit to channel her compassion and caring nature. I also think it’s a round-about method of internal healing. She heals other people’s problems in hopes of learning how to, (or to project the), heal(ing of) her own problems. However, healing one’s own problems are much different from doing it to another.

If you feel like this is your passion, then just do it. Sure there seems like a lot of well-informed opinions on that link, but I’m sure there are many positive posts too. For every action, there is an equal or greater reaction. Haters will hate, just do what you want. Someone once told me that if you’ve made a choice at one point in time, it was exactly what you wanted, or something like that. However, time does change desires, but it doesn’t change facts. Just do a little soul-searching, and just commit! Go become a social worker if you want to be one!

Don’t let whatever anyone says keep you from doing what you wanna do, or change what you think you wanna do.

I don’t think money is everything. If you love what you do, then you do what you love. What I mean by that is, if you enjoy helping people and making their lives better, then money will become secondary. Who cares if you don’t live in an extravagant habitat? People will talk shit you if you live in a small house or a big house! It just comes down to doing what you wanna do. If anyone at the top gave up just because of a bunch of shit-talkers then they wouldn’t be at the top.

A degree in Social Work prepares you for many types of work. Your salary will be dependent on where you work. Social Workers do not have to work for not-for-profit organizations. Private industry employs Social Workers in some Human Resource departments and EAP triage.

If you have a master’s degree you can rise to a manager, administrative or political position as an advocate. This may not be what you were thinking of but it helps many more people than one-on-one service delivery.