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Master of Social Work, University of Southern California



Degree Title:
Master of Social Work
College:
University of Southern California
Description:

The USC School of Social Work’s Virtual Academic Center, MSW@USC offers the opportunity to earn a Master of Social Work degree without relocating and is designed to prepare social workers with the knowledge and skills to make a difference in the world, improve the lives of vulnerable populations and eradicate pressing societal problems.

The Virtual Academic Center, MSW@USC enables you to:

• Earn a Master of Social Work from a top ten* School of Social Work.

• Participate in web-based learning, paired with hands-on field experiences in your local community.

• Choose from a variety of concentrations including: mental health; community organization, planning and administration; families and children; and military social work.

• Learn from distinguished faculty and enjoy full USC student status, including access to campus facilities, events and the Trojan Family network.

*US News and World Report, 2009

Accreditation:
Western Association of Schools and Colleges, Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities    (?)
Delivery Format:
Online   (?)
Educational Level:
Master   (?)
Language:
English
Requirements:
Students must have a Bachelors degree.

University of Southern California Student Review:

#1
We visited USC last week, and our D loved it as much as she expected to; unfortunately H and I loved it too. It’s too far away from us for us to be comfortable, but I have to admit that for the right student, it’s definitely the right school.

First, the location: we expected the campus to have a more urban feel, but it didn’t. It’s a completely contained, fenced in campus with no public streets. Absolutely beautiful campus, well landscaped. I liked their use of different looks; i.e., not the same trees or flowers, but rather an abundance of different plants so that each area had an integrated architectural look, but each area had its own color scheme and “look”. It was like Boston College, in that the architecture all fit together in an integrated appearance overall, only with a southern californian style.

We simply did not realize a city was close, much less that it surrounded us. Then you get to the fence, and the city reappears.

We attended the admitted students’ day, and overheard this from another family sitting nearby, after the day had ended: “We just did the admitted students’ thing at UCLA. At UCLA they kept telling us that you’re not a number at UCLA, but they treated us like we were. Not once did USC mention that, and we felt it was personal all the way – they don’t talk about personal attention, they just give it.”

I can’t speak to UCLA at all, but we agreed that USC definitely has a personal feel. During the tour of the specific school, the person who walked us through had obviously reviewed the applications of each of the students on the tour (we had to reserve in advance), as once she was introduced, she called the students by name and seemed to know about them. Impressive homework. (And another example of USC’s personal touch.)

Students on campus and administrators were all very friendly and helpful. The clerk in the bookstore went out of his way to help us hide the USC stuff we bought, with D standing nearby. Everyone seemed very personal. Probably our biggest and nicest surprise.

We had lunch in the big room, when the band suddenly came in playing the USC fight song – Now, that was fantastic. Wow, what an experience. For someone who had never experienced the Trojan thing, even I was blown away. The band was not just playing music – they were performing it. Their enthusiasm and energy was catching.

I do not understand why they have a statue to a dog eating a tire. Next visit, I vow to find that out. . . . [Note: since I wrote this, I have found out about the dog statue]

This was really important: USC appears (to someone who has seen many, many colleges now) to steer away from emphasizing any one school within the university. For example, NYU, where CAS and Steinhardt are clearly not at the level of Tisch and Stern, spends a lot of time simply referring to Stern and Tisch. At UMichigan (Ann Arbor), the campus is completed divided (Fine Arts, Music & Engineering are a significant commute away from central campus).

On the other hand, USC has different schools. But they don’t speak predominantly about “CNTV” or “Marshall”. They talk more about “USC”. We liked that.

We found out that the only place you can buy a more expensive sweatshirt than in the USC bookstore, is if you bought the sweatshirt at Tiffany’s, and it came with a diamond necklace.

USC admissions statistics seem to be high, and climbing (although it seems to me this is true of most top 2 tiers these days). They just got a $23 million gift for the School of Fine Arts. CNTV (Cinema and TV) is either #1 or at worst, #2 in the world. Viterbi engineering is extremely well regarded (in top 10 in the country). Marshall, the business school, is very strong. The “College”, as they call their school of arts and letters, is strong.

One very important feature is that USC encourages students to major/minor across schools. Definitely not like Penn with Wharton, or NYU with Stern and Tisch, for example, where non-Tisch people are not encouraged to minor in Tisch. USC even has special scholarships for students who excel in two or more normally unrelated fields. This was really important to our D, who had trouble deciding between two majors that were located in 2 different schools.

So D loved the school. We mailed the enrollment deposit (gulp) today.

#2
Excellent parties- really fun, frat row is always entertaining with theme parties (also suprisingly safe and right across the street! Great way to meet friends), Downtown LA is like 5 min away- with staples center and LA live. Hollywood also is close. Sports are awesome (go Trojans!), excellent school spirit. You will def have a great social life on this campus! BUT FYI- USC is not in the safest area of LA! Very sketchy! Use common scence and dont walk around alone at night you will be fine.

#3
I would not say that I am enjoying my experience as workload to complete a Masters degree keeps me occupied through out the semester but it’s been a good learning experience as it has taught a lot of things about life .My advice to incoming students would be to keep oneself prepared to work, perform under pressure and learn to adjust amongst people.
I had a good GRE score, couple of years of work experience hence all that helped me sail through almost all the universities that I applied to. I had an educational counselor for my application process, visa interview was related only to finance and plans for coming back which I handled pretty well. Process for admission consists of sending Gre, Toefl, Markssheet, Lor (Letter Of Recommendation),Sop(Statement Of Purpose)(latter three duly stamped and signed by concerned authority) to different universities where professors sit and decide about the entries. Travel experience was good I flew by Lufthansa Airways.
Courses are project oriented which focus more on practical learning that is programming languages rather than theoretical knowledge which is a good thing but one needs to work on fundamentals in order to excel at these levels. I have had different wage pay roll jobs but never any direct funding from college. Its been a bit disappointing but I hope I can repay all my loan once I get a job. School facilities are excellent no comparison to what so ever, incoming students should concentrate on studies right from day one as last minute studies do not work here, try and be patient, calm and interact amongst professors about research interest all in all attain a good teacher student relationship as it maters a lot while funding is given by college.

#4
USC is an excellent school for education, but be wary of the social scene. I highly value my education from USC and once I actually got into the working world, I realized that the skills and knowledge I had gained while at USC set my high above many of my other colleagues. The professors at USC vary, as they do at any university. However, I must say that most of them are very willing to interact with their students, offer advice, whether it’s career-oriented, graduate program-oriented, or just life-oriented. They truly do care for their kids and if you put in the effort, they’ll give it right back to 100%.
Now, that being said, if you want an honest opinion about the social scene… well it can suck. Get involved! And if you want to be on the “in-crowd” (and yes, sad to say there are still the “populars” even in college), join a sorority/frat/ be an athlete. Sad, but true. But USC is not alone in this. My friends across town at UCLA complained of the same immature crap.
Good luck and Fight On!



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This entry was posted on Thursday, August 5th, 2010 at 2:25 am and is filed under Social Sciences, Tags: , , — You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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