Hi everyone. Despite the yucky weather, today is a big, overlywhelmingly important day....we first-year foundation students were allowed to register this morning for next semester's classes. Yippee!! Hooray!! Sa-weet!! Yeah, not so much. Registering for classes has always been a very stressful event for me...I worry about not getting the classes I want....I wonder if the classes I want are the ones I actually should be wanting....I imagine three days before I'm supposed to graduate getting a notice in the mail saying I need an additional 3 credits that were supposed to be taken my first year, that kind of thing. Anyway, as things always do, they worked out once again this morning and I'm looking forward to a pretty exciting spring semester. I've decided that my concentration will be in health, and I'll be delving into that field with an advanced policy course entitled Social Policy and Health Care. From what I know about the course, it sounds interesting, and though I'm not thrilled that it's a night class, I'm anxious to see how that class differs from the day classes I've taken this semester. I'll be sure to keep you all posted.

Switching gears for a moment, I received the very first comment in response to my blog. (Thanks, Sara!) Bit of background for the rest of you: a woman applying to the social work program here at UMB asked if I have any suggestions of books/articles that she could read in order to get a better idea of what a social worker actually does. To answer your question, Sara, sadly I don't...but I'm actually not sure that that'd be the best way to find what you're looking for. First of all, social work is an incredibly broad field-- and social workers can play vastly different roles within it. It might help for you to think about the various areas of social work in which you are interested, and then find some social workers who are placed there, set up informational interviews, that kind of thing. Depending on where you live, you might be able to meet with someone from a local chapter of the National Association of Social Workers. Along those lines, their website might be a really useful resource for you:
href="http://www.socialworkers.org/">http://www.socialworkers.org/
You can read the social worker's code of ethics there, find a local chapter, see what some of the most current issues in the field are, etc. I remember referencing their website on multiple occasions before coming to UMB, and always found it very informative.

Hopefully all of this babble has helped to answer your question...if it hasn't, please let me know and I'll gladly give it another go.

Must run now, friends. The application for the India program is due this upcoming Thursday, and as you are all well aware, the reach of my procrastination gets to even the good stuff.

I'll write soon...promise. Stay dry. :)