00:00:00
Virtual MSW Information Session
Jennifer Ramlall
04:54:45 PM
Welcome to the Columbia School of Social Work virtual information session!
This session is for prospective MSW students, hosted by the Admissions Office. We are happy you are able to join us tonight! We’d love to hear where you are joining us from tonight!
Please share with us your city/state!
OK, here we come.
All right. Welcome. Welcome everyone.
Good evening.
Good evening everyone. We'd love to hear where you are.
Coming in from where are you in the world? Let us know in the in the chat box.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:00:29 PM
Welcome everyone!!
Jessica Mendez
05:00:32 PM
Los Angeles
Lane Alexander
05:00:32 PM
Georgetown, KY!
Nathania Santoso
05:00:33 PM
Hello I am from Houston, Texas!
Lizbeth Quintero
05:00:33 PM
Irvine!
Chandler Riley
05:00:35 PM
California!
Isabelle Randall
05:00:36 PM
Manhattan!
Andrea Chang
05:00:36 PM
Toronto, Canada!
Dawn Duques
05:00:36 PM
NYC
Jessica Sasscer
05:00:37 PM
Philadelphia
Jenny Bram
05:00:37 PM
Maine
Isabel DiGiacomo
05:00:38 PM
Here in NYC!
Alyssa Romo
05:00:38 PM
San Francisco!
America Armenta
05:00:38 PM
Oakland, California!
Imogen Micklewhite
05:00:42 PM
Boston, MA
Jasmine Jackson
05:00:42 PM
Memphis, TN!
HannahRose Garcia
05:00:42 PM
New Jersey
Jamila Peguero
05:00:43 PM
Jamila (she/her) from NH
Ginger Atwood
05:00:44 PM
Manhattan!
Kar Dobinski
05:00:44 PM
maryland
Jennifer Yu
05:00:44 PM
NYC
Jacqueline Segal
05:00:48 PM
New Orleans, LA!
Jennifer Rodriguez
05:00:48 PM
New York
Tayah McCollum
05:00:48 PM
Boston
Brittany Lizaola
05:00:49 PM
Los Angeles
Jacqueline Rosenbaum
05:00:50 PM
Another Manhattan!
Shreya Chinnamatur
05:00:51 PM
Ewing, New Jersey !
Stephanie Ayala
05:00:51 PM
Los Angeles
OK, we've got somebody from LA. Wonderful. Georgetown, KY, Houston, TX, Irvine. Oh wow. We got that. Oakland. Lots of California folks. Manhattan. Another California. Toronto. Philly. Ohh. It's going so fast for me right now. New Hampshire. New Jersey, Boston, Maryland. Manhattan. Sorry, I know I missed a couple of you in there. I apologize. Let's see who did I miss mean, I miss Maine. Sorry about that.
Emily Sinrod
05:00:53 PM
Boston!
Clara Marton
05:00:53 PM
Hello! I am from Boston, nice to meet you all!
Melanie Abzun
05:00:53 PM
Los Angeles!
Sophia Nicastro
05:00:57 PM
Hi I'm Sophia and I'm from a town on Eastern Long Island called Center Moriches!
T Tucker
05:01:00 PM
Nashville
Maya Turnley
05:01:01 PM
New Jersey!
Meghna Singh
05:01:14 PM
Los Altos, CA
Um, Yep. New Orleans. Wow. Boston, LA. Another Manhattan. Ewing, NJ. More from LA What a big group from LA. How wonderful. Another Boston. Another Boston. Wow. We got quite a Boston contingent tonight. Eastern Long Island called Center Morec Moriches, I think. Nashville, New Jersey. Wonderful.
Angela Machado
05:01:17 PM
San Diego
Anya Regelin
05:01:17 PM
NYC
If you're just joining us, let us know where you're coming from. Los Altos, CA, San Diego.
Stephanie Chen
05:01:23 PM
new york
Why all these California folks tonight? New York City? Nice New York.
Chris Tao
05:01:27 PM
Shanghai, China :-)
Dmitri Dixon
05:01:27 PM
Jamaica
Just for the California folks to know.
Adriana Cano
05:01:35 PM
Lawrence MA!
Heejun Lee
05:01:36 PM
Seoul, South Korea
Winnie Blay
05:01:40 PM
florida
Fredi Nielsen
05:01:45 PM
North Carolina!
Our second largest alumni contingent comes from California. Sometimes people ask about that. Shanghai, China, Wonderful. Jamaica, Lawrence, MA, Seoul, South Korea. Ohh great. I'm wondering what time it is in Seoul, South Korea right now. Florida, North Carolina. Nice. Wow, what a. We've got people from everywhere tonight. This is so great.
Yeah. So welcome, welcome everyone. If you're just joining us, please let us know in the chat where you're coming in from.
And Jenna's handling. Uh, the chat tonight. I'll introduce her in a moment.
Yeah. We're so happy you're all here. Thank you for joining us this evening.
I'm going to give everybody like one more minute and then we'll start.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you everyone up. We've got somebody new just came in. Let us know where you're coming in from.
Our 68th person on the call tonight.
I think we have like 140 people signed up, so we'll probably more people will be trickling in.
All right. OK. Mumbai, India. Wonderful. Ohh, I know. Doctor Khandekar, you joined us the other day. Nice to see you again. Jessica from New Jersey, Lila from New York City. Great.
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.
OK.
OK, everyone. So thank you so much for joining us tonight. My name is Natasha Dashes. I'm the interim Director of Admissions at the Columbia School of Social Work.
My pronouns are she and her, and I'm in Manhattan, NY tonight. Uh, the unseated territory of the Lenape people.
Prakash Kondekar
05:03:29 PM
From Mumbai India
Lila Michaels
05:03:30 PM
Here in NYC!
Jessie Nash
05:03:31 PM
Hello. I am in New Jersey
And I couldn't be more delighted to be with you. I'm joined with my wonderful colleague Jennifer Rommel, who many of you probably know from.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:03:46 PM
Hello everyone, welcome !
Emails that you've sent or phone calls that you've done, she's the one right there all the time. A wonderful person, a wonderful colleague for me, and I know she's a great support to all of you, so she'll be joining us tonight.
Lexa Nkhata
05:03:50 PM
I'm Lexa from Malawi
And helping out with questions. So tonight I'm going to be talking to you about the Masters of Social Work. This is an information session session for prospective students who are interested in coming to the School of Social Work to do the MSW.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:04:06 PM
If you experience any technical difficulties, please attempt to 1) Refresh your web browser or 2) try and open the webinar in a different web browser (we recommend Chrome).
We are utilizing a chat feature today so you can ask any questions you have. If time allows, we may share and address your question live if it would be helpful for a majority of your future classmates. If your questions are unique to you and your context we may choose to answer it post event. When you submit a comment or question, it will appear to you in grey and won’t be visible to the public. If we choose to publish your comment, it will re-post in black text in the chat room for all participants to see.
And umm, I'm going to be going through a lot of information. It takes like 45 minutes to go through all of this. We certainly you can put any question you have in the Q&A area. Jen will be answering those while we move along. If you notice she doesn't answer it, it's probably because the question will be answered shortly in the presentation. We do ask that you ask questions that benefit everyone that aren't like super Duper specific to your situation.
Brianna Leatherwood
05:04:35 PM
Pensacola,FL
Mandisa Ducreay-Oseni
05:04:35 PM
Hello From Dominica!
Because we really can't answer those in these types of sessions. Those are better done in the small group counseling or one-on-one counseling sessions or phone calls or emails. But we will do our best to answer as many as we can tonight. All right, So let's move into the presentation.
This is such a beautiful quote from Professor Courtney Cogburn. What richer place to think about how to have a meaningful impact on the world. And I really think that's true. I am also an alum of the school. I love the school. I love the profession. I believe the MSW is probably the most versatile masters that you can earn, and this is an incredibly wonderful field to work in. The meaningful part that she speaks about here is really important because this.
Is a profession that stems from the meaning in our lives and the purpose of our lives, right? This is the kind of you do not embark on social work lightly. There's something that's bringing you to this moment, even to come to this info session. Whatever you decide to do that's drawing you into this path of social work, and we're excited to hear about what your why is, and we believe that it can be met with a what from the CSW in many ways.
These are some of the topics I'm going to be talking about tonight. I'm not going to go through all of those right now.
Aria Komoroff
05:06:16 PM
Hello, From NYC
But I'll be hitting on those as we go through the talk um, so some of the just highlights right now to think about. We actually have I think over 20,000 alum out there in the field. Of course we are top ranked R1 research institution. I'll go into that in a moment. We are the highest social work licensing pass rate in New York. That's important to think about. I know a lot of people say I want to come and do an MSW because I want to be a therapist. What a wonderful goal and certainly we need so much mental health.
Support right now in the world for sure. And there are many steps to becoming a therapist, right? And one of those is passing your your LMSW. You should be able to pass that right away right out of your MSN. Yes, a little bit of prep work on how to take the test, but the knowledge.
Um, you should have gained from from your master, So that's a good question to ask. OK, going back to being the top R1 research institution.
We have incredible, incredible research centers and I'll be talking about those. And I want just want to highlight one of our grants, $86 million NIH grant awarded. This is the largest NIH grant ever awarded on the Columbia. We have 17 schools at Columbia University and I think one of the largest NIH grants period. This was for the heel capital letters, Hal ING grant and.
This was to end the IT was part of a three state research grant to end the opioid crisis in New York and you can read more about that on the SITE Research Center and I'm going to skip right over there. Now here's a number of the research centers that we have here. I encourage all of you to look into these.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:08:08 PM
Here is some more information about our Research Centers at CSSW: https://socialwork.columbia.edu/faculty-research/research-centers-programs/
Rebecca Lowen
05:08:16 PM
NYC!
Genesis Torres
05:08:17 PM
Hello, I'm Genesis from NYC.
So there's different ways that the research centers could affect you as a student while you're at the school. One of the ways is that our professors who had these up also teach. So you're going to be learning evidence based practices in the classroom from the very people who are doing the research. A good example is Doctor Kathy Shearer, who heads up the Center for Prolonged Grief. Prolonged grief is what complicated Grief is now called and is in the DSM, and she's one of the leading researchers in the world.
Kar Dobinski
05:08:18 PM
am most interested in online program ~ am sure you will be addressing the pluses/minuses vis a vis the on campus?
And you can take a class on grief with her. You can take a class specifically on prolonged grief with her. So that's one example. The Action Lab for Social Justice is the, I believe, the only student LED lab across the Columbia system. This is an incredible lab, just what it sounds like. The students that are doing participatory research, a really incredible stuff. And there are fellowships that are off also offered in that that lab. There's a number of other labs.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:08:51 PM
Hi Kar, Natasha will discuss this later in the presentation!
Listed on here another one, the one I had just mentioned about that $86 million grant is the social intervention group which was founded during the HIV AIDS crisis originally. They do a lot of incredible kind of intersectional research both in the United States and abroad.
And many, many other centers here. So again, we're not going to be able to go through all these, but these are good to look into. Some of them are just social work professors. Most are interdisciplinary with other schools across the campus. Some students do, do their placements in these research centers. Those tend to be students who want to do something like policy and are interested in data and research and that kind of thing.
Kar Dobinski
05:09:52 PM
If I want to practice as a therapist in Maryland, what support would Columbia offer for meeting Maryland's test and coursework licensing requirements
Kar Dobinski
05:09:53 PM
is the licensing test the same in all states ?
But there's uh all of us can benefit from both of professors and the number of events that all of these places do. We will send out the Social Work Connect newsletter and when any of these centers are doing a talk, you'll get that in the emails we send you. So connected to those centers and beyond are all of these tenured professors that you see on this slide in the bottom, let's see, left hand corner the gentleman.
Uh, there's Doctor Gao on the far end. She's heads up the China Center for Social Policy, does amazing, amazing research. And then there's Doctor Craig Schwalbe right next to her. And if any of you have had a chance to come to our sample class and Q&A with a professor, he is our next one up. He does research in juvenile justice, amazing stuff. And he's going to actually be doing a sample class, bringing in a little bit of direct practice and clinical work. So that is on November 2nd.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:10:36 PM
Hi Kar, Natasha will discuss this in a few moments!
And Jen will put that in the chat if you want to sign up for that. Don't worry if you miss it in the chat because we'll be sending you out a mailing this week.
OK.
Yes, so these are these are all tenured research professors. I encourage you to spend time on the website. A really fun thing to do to learn more about social work in the Columbia School of Social Work is just to click on each of the professors listed. Read about their BIOS, their backgrounds, Google them. Yeah, you know, all the 10 year professors will have a number of videos you can watch, watch, and lectures.
And then you can find out the different types of professors we have. So these are the tenured research ones. We also have what we call practice professors. These are experts in our specialization areas, such as policy or integrated practice and programming. If any of you got to see Professor Yamli Marty Hyder last week, she's the IPP professor, for example.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:11:35 PM
You can sign up for the sample class on November 2nd, here: https://apply.ssw.columbia.edu/register/?id=8508feda-61bd-4814-9c33-00fb21d7833d
Um, And then we have the third kind of professors we have are people who are adjuncts, and these are people who've got.
You know, years and years, sometimes decades of experiences out in the field. So they are closest to the field. And we believe that by being taught by all three of these, you get a very, very well-rounded education in social work at the Columbia School of Social Work.
OK, so I'm going to take a moment here and we're going to watch a video. Jen will put it.
If you can't access it.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:12:06 PM
CSSW Video: https://youtu.be/_bYCkYLYy1A
I always love watching that video. Um, yeah. So you had a a opportunity to see what Professor Cogburn looks like. She was in the video and also one of the views from our 11th floor veranda, which apparently is one of the best on campus. I've recently learned from some of the other schools. So you had a little bit of insight and also into the classrooms, what they look like. They're very modern and tech savvy. So a little bit of.
Things. And you've got the video link there from John, so you could rewatch that again and maybe look for some of those things as well. I'm also one of the students in there. Darrell Washington is getting his PhD now at University of Chicago, so that's exciting as well.
OK. So so we actually, so we are one campus with two platforms and on on those platforms there are multiple options. So we have New York City or residential campus and our platform and we also have the online platform. And then as you can see here, there's a number of different options you can do depending on which one you take. For the most part, all of the options exist across the board, the only exceptions.
Bar for our 16 month program which starts in January, you can only do that residentially and the part time is only offered online.
There, the five term international is also only offered residentially.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:17:35 PM
Hi Kar, Natasha is addressing your question now.
OK. So let's move on from there. Um, I want to talk about our online program. So this is not something that we suddenly slapped on because of the pandemic, which many, many places did. And I really encourage you, if you're considering online education to really ask hard questions about how they developed it. I would, you know, how much money they put into developing it, you know, what's the pedagogical underpinnings of it. So January.
Uh, 2024 marks our 10th year anniversary of our online program, which is pretty exciting and it was under development for years before we launched it. The pandemic sure brought in some more technical expertise to it, but we were already leaders in the field. Our online program is synchronous. It is not asynchronous. It's not something you do where you take your classes at 2:00 in the morning, you come to actual classes with your classmates. It's very, very lively.
Isabelle Randall
05:18:18 PM
Is there a difference in acceptance between full-time and part-time students?
T Tucker
05:18:26 PM
Is the same program offered at all different campus locations?
It's extremely participatory. So it's a very, very active act style of studying. And that's what the, the research shows is how you learn in and online space. So while again, you can do your homework at 2:00 in the morning, you need to come to class at 6:00 PM or 8:30 PM, whatever time your class is. And it's very, very exciting.
Then across the board, if we look at the online platform that that exists in every single thing we do. So everything I'm going to talk about tonight is also in the online space, whether it's student support services, student life, of course, graduation orientation, all those things, everything exists in both. In fact, we're not allowed to do anything unless we can do it in both. So please just know that as well, OK?
Let's move on. All right. So in the video you saw that we have the four by 7 model. And this is in your final year, your specialized year, where you will select one of four specializations and pair it with the field of practice. In your generalist year, you're for most people, your first year you can do the whole degree in five years. Some people do part time for a little bit before they come into practicum.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:19:42 PM
Hi Isabelle, there is no difference in acceptance rate between part time or full time students.
Uh, but you have to finish it in five. Um, that's your generalist year. This is true for any counts of social work, education, accredited program. Your first year is your generalist year. Your second year is your specialized year. In your specialized year, you can do advanced clinical social work. You can go all the way up to the macro and do policy. You might want to do leadership management and entrepreneurship and social justice. Or you can do what's called IPP, integrated practice and programming, which kind of.
Represents the breadth of social work from the micro meso to the macro and then you pick a field of practice which could be any one of these seven. And we can talk more about these as we move into practicum and certainly by the kind of questions that will come up tonight.
You can also do a dual degree or take classes at one of the other schools at Columbia not listed here. It's not for a dual degree, but you can take classes at the Climate School. I know a lot of people are interested in environmental justice. We do have a class in environmental justice now, but some people also may want to take an elective there.
And you know, another way to to participate in the other schools might be to go to attend events at them or to be part of a a larger Columbia club. I know next week there's a big social entrepreneurship or not next week, this week on Friday at the Business School.
Um, so different schools are involved in that. And that's the kind of thing that sometimes you can be involved with that's cross campus. It doesn't have to be a full dual degree. There's many different ways to participate in all the many offerings at Columbia, of course, probably from what you're hearing from me.
Of course, you'll never have time to do all these things, but that's OK. You'll find the things that are interesting to you, and you'll follow those.
There are so many opportunities for you here and then you're going to follow your path within all of these.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:21:56 PM
Hi Tucker, areas of methods and specializations are available both online and in person
OK. So let's talk about some unique programs that are at the Columbia School of Social Work. The first one is DBT Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. So this is students in the advanced Clinical practice specialization apply for this. It's a very small cohort that's selected. It's a separate application within once you're already in school and then this is a special program with specific classes, specific internships and and you're in a special cohort that does things together.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:22:12 PM
Some programs like the part time program can only be completed online.
Um, so that's one of them. We are also developing A psychedelic assisted therapy program that will mirror this in all the same ways that is still getting approval. So we it may be fall 2024 or fall 2025 when that comes on.
However, for most of you on this call, either one of those would work since this is that would be a specialized year thing. Both programs offer electives though, so again you don't have to be in the program to study these things. Accelerated Policy is a specific program where you can start to study policy. Take some of the classes during your first year, your generalist year.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:22:48 PM
You can view the options and the platforms they are offered on here: https://socialwork.columbia.edu/academics/msw-program/your-msw-pathway/
Tatiana Copeland
05:22:54 PM
is it possible to switch to online learning after being accepted into the in person program?
Jessica Mendez
05:22:55 PM
Will there be a recording of this Info session?
OK, so one of the really unique things about Columbia School of Social Work is the incredible support you can get here from our many, many student services. And it's really interesting because I've been actually interviewing people to work in my department, and they're coming from all over and many from different schools of social work. And they are so surprised to learn that all of these are housed in the School of Social Work. We're not borrowing these from Columbia campus. We're not sharing them. It's not.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:23:22 PM
Hi Jessica, yes the info session is being recorded and you can request it at cssw-admit@columbia.edu
One Career Center that a whole bunch of schools are using Now we have our own Career Center advising practicum. I want to give a shout out to the writing center. That's just incredible.
Jennifer Rodriguez
05:23:32 PM
For your advance standing program can you have a bachelors in criminal justice to apply?
Brittany Lizaola
05:23:32 PM
Is the DBT program only for students in the accelerated msw program?
Place where you go to get your grammar checked. You can definitely do your grammar, or using Grammarly or something like this is where you go to learn how to write academically. You can make an appointment with them even if you haven't written anything down yet, but you're just in the process of figuring out what you want to write. They also help with scholarship applications and all kinds of other things. We have a social work review.
UH Journal, which is a student UH written journal and UH number of students choose to participate in that. That's an extracurricular activity you can do and Adam, who's actually pictured here.
Who's the director of the center? He also heads that up, and students can be repaired as student editor and student writer. We have a big party at the end of the year and you get published in a journal. So just that's just a plug for just the writing center.
If you want to think about some of these other, um centers, they're.
Many, many social workers work in them, just like me. So you can get coached all the way through by professional social workers, you know, And we see all of these as a continuum, starting with our office, the office of Admissions. This is the beginning of your coaching into a social work career.
Um, you know, students can take as much advantage of these or as little as they want, but the ones who take a lot of advantage really tend to do the best. I'll just say that. And again, you could you could do any one of these things in person or online.
The library, of course, is an incredible institution, I think the second largest library in the United States. Everything and anything you could ever want to check out is there. Each school has its library, so the whole system is just incredible. That's another thing you can do. When I was a student, I used to like to go study at the different libraries just to mix up the environment.
Um, again, We have world class librarians who help you as you're doing your research for your papers and things like that. So lots and lots of amazing, amazing support here. And again, just like I said, many licensed social workers will be helping you. This is an example of somebody getting.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:25:36 PM
Hi Jennifer, the Advanced Standing Program is only available to students who have earned a BSW from a CSWE accredited school.
Have a coaching and advising around practicum.
Bernice Yakubu
05:25:48 PM
Is there application fee?
All right. So financial aid, of course, a very big question. How am I going to pay to go to school? So over 90% of our students receive some form of financial aid.
These are based on need and merit. We have some name scholarships. We encourage everybody as part of your process to start thinking about how will you pay for it. Of course, the Office of Financial Aid provides marvelous counseling once you're admitted. Admitted students can take advantage of that. Those services one-on-one as many times as you need.
Uh, But also for all of you just to start thinking about what are all the outside potential scholarships and other ways that I can fund my education?
Okay, Social work here is the hardest social work practicum learning, right? This is at the Nexus of theory and practice.
So one of the most, to me, beautiful things about social work, education, is that three days a week you're in practicum and two days a week you are in class, So. And that's every week. So you're not, you know, studying for nine months and then all of a sudden in the summer you're in an internship and you're trying to remember all that theory. No, you know, in class on Tuesday you might be learning something that you know on Thursday you're putting into practice and you're practicum when you're in class and the professor, you know, maybe you're talking about an article.
That you've read, or you're talking about a modality or something. The kind of examples that you and your classmates will be sharing are things from practicum. So it's this constant back and forth like that.
You know, we have over 800 plus placements just in the New York City area alone and then across the country of course for the online program. So also to be clear, this question always comes up for the online program, you go to class online, but your practicum, you are going to physically go to a nonprofit agency or wherever you're doing your, your practical work.
OK.
The third part of your education. OK, so we've talked about academics, we've talked about practicum. The third part is what we call the extracurricular. So the extracurricular are all the student clubs and we have 25 at least student caucuses. I'm not sure what the exact number is. They send out their e-mail today every week. And I just, it's it's like it almost makes me laugh. I mean, I laugh with delight because it's just pages and pages of events that our office of student life.
Was and the number of clubs that this this caucus is hosting, this event this caucus is doing this these caucuses are everything from like specializations like the policy Caucus to affinity caucuses. The black Student Caucus for example, to maybe a cause so many, many, many things going on with the student caucuses and student life. We're coming up on our well-being week where there'll be all kinds of planning and.
Great things. I know. Um, next week, one of the things we're doing.
Which will be super fine. Uh, we just signed up for our candy today. You know, we're going to be having Halloween at school. So all the administrative offices will have candy for everybody to come by and and et cetera. So that's just kind of a fun thing. But all kinds of things are student life does. In addition, the Columbia School social workers I already mentioned, we have tons and tons of events. We have named lectures, the different research centers do lectures and so on. You can go to our CSA YouTube page and click on videos and you'll just see.
Hundreds of videos and that can be another way to learn about the field of social work and Columbia School of Social Work. You know, those are good things to listen to, listen to the language, listen to how the professor speak or the OR the alum whoever's featured on these different videos. And then again of course all the university wide resources and amenities. So whether it's things like the counseling sessions or another fun thing that I live right by is the Lenfest Center. This is where the MFA programs are the masters and fine.
Arts. So you know, you can go see it's so great when they're graduating because they're senior projects are plays and dances and et cetera, and you can go to all those for free. And that's another really amazing thing about being part of a large institution like this.
OK, so we have a very large commitment to inclusion.
In 2016, the demands movement swept the United States and if you were in school then you might be familiar with that. This was a different type of organizing from students. I think in previously students kind of organized and made requests and the demands era, that's just what it sounds like. These are our demands and I think our students had maybe 60 something demands and they were very clear. We're not asking for these, we are demanding these and actually all of the demands were granted.
That year, one of the demands was to have a specific office of de EI, which we do. We have not just an office, we have an entire area devoted and it's fully staffed up. I actually report to senior associate Dean Carmelo, who's pictured in this slide here.
Um, And they have a beautiful space. We have a number of supportive groups that are held there by Affinity. UH, just this week or last week, sorry, it's a new week now. The women of color met and so on. So there's different groups like that. So we have those at the larger Columbia University and also at the Columbia School of Social Work.
Um, also at that time, uh, the PROP curriculum went into effect. So this is the lens from which all of our classes are taught. This is power, race, oppression, and privilege. Everybody takes a foundational course. That's called Prop, and this is a decolonizing it's foundations of social work practice, decolonizing social work.
Um, so that's one of your first classes that you take. But every single course is taught through that lens and we start this right from the beginning, right at orientation. So we have what we call PSA, professional development and self-awareness training. So that's your first foray into kind of prop education. And this of course is the work that we do for our entire life as social workers. We are constantly deconstructing ourselves.
Um, and seeing the world through these lenses. Um.
I Let's see, Yes. So that that's prop.
OK. So I've talked about a bunch of the other student service groups. Another one that's very important is career leadership and management. So we have a team staffed here who will help you with all the types of things that you're thinking about. They also hold a number of events. There's a really cool one that they're doing that I just talked to the director about. There are state fellowships. So this is, this is for people who do policy. It's across the United States and.
Different state governments hire social workers to do these fellowships. So it's you. You don't, you not only get a job, but you also get mentored. You're in a cohort, you get all this incredible training. The person who leads this up is very, very pro social work and she has a great relationship with him. So that's just one example and I think very exciting.
Of course, as she will say, she's one part of the career thing. Every single bit of your education is related to your career, your practicum. You know, all the people you meet at your practicum, your peers, of course, your peers, your professors, everybody you interact with in the school, people you meet in general, right? All of these people are going to be part of the process. So while they're a very important part of it, they're not the only piece and career leadership. And this goes back to that coaching I was speaking about before.
So where do people end up in, in, in their careers? Everywhere. We like to say that if you name a place and we'll tell you how a social worker is there. Again, a very, very versatile career degree and people can do many, many things in their lives. I'm a very good example of that.
Done work in foundations. I've worked with refugees.
And asylum seekers, I've worked in international organizations, I've done a lot of higher Ed palliative and end of life. So we like to say you're learning a set of skills that you can apply across many different settings. And please come to our social work lives events, because this will give you a chance to hear from different alumni and the different experiences that they have here we have on the screen.
Some other some examples of places where people are UH, they work in the government at all levels, including holding offices. Hospital social work is a very big thing and that means a lot of things. Some people do clinical social work, like being on an oncology team or being in palliative social work. Or they may be case managers. They might work in hospitals, have a lot of outpatient clinics, including mental health clinics where they might work.
Uh, there are gender affirming centers, surgical centers. That's another place so many, many places in hospitals where people work.
And it it all kinds of different titles.
Additionally, people work internationally in schools. Of course, where are children? Children are in schools. So many, many people working in schools, in nonprofits, big and small.
OK, so application requirements very very important. First thing of course complete your application.
Very, very important. Second thing is there is an application fee. There are some people, some categories where there's a waiver. You do need to do a resume. Please make this as specific as possible. We give you very, very detailed instructions. Follow those instructions carefully. OK 2 letters of recommendation. Make sure you're the people recommending you know you and know what you're applying for. You can't write the recommendation.
That you can have a conversation with your the people who are recommending you, um, we across the board.
Make your whole application about you. We want to know about you holistically. By the time I look at all these components, I want to say, oh, I know that person. I know why they want to do social work. I know about their life and their professional experience and all these things.
Um, so don't be generic. That's that's a good application tip. Overall. We have essay questions, generally 2 questions. A few of the programs have 3.
Essays. Academic transcripts. You can turn in unofficial ones initially, but we do need official transcripts to verify you in the end.
Uh, before you can enroll, OK and then non-native English speaking, we do have UH. You can take any one of those tests listed here. The details are on our application web page.
And then for those who are either going to do advanced standing if you have BSW or you're transfer, we do have to see your field evaluation, OK?
Um, all right, big one. The deadline. So we've already passed our spring deadline, so our next deadline is December 1st. That's our priority deadline for fall of 2024.
And then our final fall of 2024 deadline is February 15th. OK, I went through a lot of stuff very fast. Thank you so much. Here is our contact information general also can put that in the chat and.
I am. I'm gonna take some time. Boy, this is the fastest I think I've ever done it. I'm gonna look through some of the questions that maybe Jen has not answered yet, and I'm gonna answer those with her. So we'll be answering in tandem now. OK. So please feel free to write any questions. Thank you so much for listening to that. And I'm going to move over to the questions now, OK.
All right.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:38:15 PM
Hi Bernice, there is an application fee and it is $75
Jasmine Jackson
05:38:18 PM
Is there an opportunity to do student-led interdisciplinary research with any department at the school or only pre-determined departments? (Ex. A partnership with Af-Am , Anthro departments or the other social sciences). Is there a feasible amount of time to do student-led research as a fulltime student in the MSW program?
OK, so let's see. There's a question about.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:38:29 PM
You can request a fee waiver by emailing cssw-admit@columbia.edu
Is there an opportunity to do student LED interdisciplinary research with any department of the school or only predetermined departments? Example, partnership with African American anthro departments or other social sciences.
Ah.
So the reality is the MSW is a very time intensive program.
Kar Dobinski
05:39:04 PM
is there on on-campus tour, information session>
Like I said, three days a week in practicum, that's a full work day. So you might be somewhere 9:00 to 5:00 at your placement and you may have a 45 minute commute each way. And then when you come home, or also for me, I always write on the subway going back and forth to work. You have homework because the next day you may have a full day of classes. So certainly some students do work, study, and other.
Other schools on the on the campus that that those options, as long as those are available and you can apply for them. If you have work study and as you can do it as an extracurricular. Again, everything you do is a choice. If I do this, I probably can't do that. So you would weigh all these different things then sure you might be able to do those things. And again many of our departments are interdisciplinary the Research Center. So you like the Justice lab that's made-up of people.
Working on reforming, from a very abolitionist point of view, the criminal justice systems in the United States, and that's made-up of people from all across the campus.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:39:54 PM
Hi Kar, we are working on in person events and we will notify students as soon as they become available. We do have in person tours happening now and you can register here: https://apply.ssw.columbia.edu/portal/csswbuildingtours?_ga=2.134246577.1313857052.1698065079-1631097106.1673270135&_gac=1.146933573.1695663106.CjwKCAjw38SoBhB6EiwA8EQVLgKIBV8G-9DbAbww4O0xCpAz7Vd6pbPi636NDWGTYTzByxlZDWXfVBoCdfsQAvD_BwE
So again, thinking about what it is that you would want to do.
OK.
Sophia Nicastro
05:39:58 PM
When is the application deadline?
Alright.
OK.
OK, we do not have a Sarah Lawrence campus anymore. The only campus we have is here and the online program.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:40:23 PM
Hi Sophia, the fall offers two deadlines December 1st for priority decisions and February 15th is the final deadline
T Tucker
05:40:26 PM
I am just wondering if there is a difference between the Sarah Lawrence campus and the one in NYC. It is my understanding that the MSW in Sarah Lawrence is for a specific path - children's education I believe. Is that true?
That was a question from T Tucker. OK, so we we no longer have a Westchester campus, although some people from Westchester do the online program or they do the residential, either one.
Um, OK.
Dmitri Dixon
05:40:29 PM
Is the DBT program open to those in the online program?
Tayah McCollum
05:40:31 PM
Do online students have the same access to scholarship opportunities as on-campus students?
Generally speaking, most almost all the funding for either.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:40:50 PM
Hi Dimitri, the DBT program is only available to students who are in person
OK. So for in terms of the question is asked about are the same things available for online students and residential students for financial aid and scholarship And yes, for the most part that is true.
Genesis Torres
05:41:05 PM
Does Columbia offer lull scholarships?
Kar Dobinski
05:41:13 PM
how on earth do you find practicums for online students who are not in NY?
Um, I'm trying to think. We do have a special scholarship for CUNY students, which is City of University of New York. So some of those students may do the online program, but if you live in California and you didn't go to one of those, you wouldn't be eligible. That would be probably the exception to that rule.
Um, OK.
Isabelle Randall
05:41:18 PM
Is practicum monday - friday only?
So question from Isabella is when is practicum? Basically so practicum.
And the first year in the generalist year is Monday, Thursday and Friday, and in the specialized year it is.
Wait a minute, did I just get that backwards? Wait a SEC. Uh, no, sorry. It's Monday, Tuesday and Friday The 1st year and the second year it's Monday, Thursday and Friday.
OK, uh.
Tatiana Copeland
05:41:46 PM
how do we get in contact with an advisor?
So there was a question about how do you get in contact with an advisor? So once you're an admitted student, you can talk to anybody from the office of advising. You're certainly welcome to set up appointments or to join group counseling that we're doing right now and you can just join. We'll put the links to those. If you're interested in the online campus, we have online campus counselors that you can talk to and Jen can put all those links in the chat for you. Those are also all available, right, right on the website.
OK.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:42:18 PM
Hi Kar, our field practicum office has developed relationships with agencies across the country !
Genesis Torres, do we offer some full scholarships? I think that was already answered. Sorry.
Maya Turnley
05:42:24 PM
Can we submit more than two letters of recommendation?
OK, question. Can I submit more than two letters of recommendation? No, please do not. We only want to. We purposely streamlined it. So please just do whatever it says.
Jessie Nash
05:42:42 PM
Does this internship count as practicum hours or as a separate course?
We we actually don't want extra materials about anything, so just stay, stay with what we've asked for it'll and make it as high quality as possible.
I'll give you an example. I read a essay today and one of the essay questions was a paragraph line.
Not too much time spent on that, right? We give people a lot more than a paragraph, You know, the person could have written 5 paragraphs and done really nice writing.
You know, so I would say.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:43:11 PM
Hi Jessica, the practicum hours appear on your transcript as 4.5 credits a semester, but also meets the practicum hours
Write your essays. Have a good friend, a mentor. Somebody read over for them, for you and and get their feedback on them. You have to write it, but you can get feedback from somebody. They can say, I've heard you talk about this. I was wondering why you didn't put it in your essay. And then you'll you'll think, Oh yeah, I I do need to put that in. Or, you know, we all make big typos and things and maybe they'll catch one of those that you haven't seen. So I would spend the time on quality, on what we've asked for, not by putting extra things in.
OK.
Kar Dobinski
05:43:44 PM
there is a belief out there that Columbia is more focused o policy as opposed to clinical practice
Uh, Yep. I this question always comes up here. The the belief that Colombia is more focused on policy than clinical. 80 plus percent of our students study clinical practice. Again, I I in our DBT program and again she teaches in the school as a whole is Andre Ivanoff. She's one of the original DBT folks with Marsha Linahan. Everybody at Columbia in their generalist practice year does a seven week module and motivational interviewing. This was developed by Doctor Alan's.
Evan and his team, Doctor Allens Wieman and Doctor Bill Miller are the original developers of motivational interviewing. Again, Doctor Kathy Shear. With prolonged grief and many, many other clinical folks, you'll have a chance to get to hear Doctor Schwalbe on November 2nd. I encourage you to come, but mostly students come to our school to study clinical practice.
OK. Let's see. Other questions that we've got, I see we've got somebody from Nigeria, Ohh Mercy, nice to see you. Yep, we've talked before. Um, let's see.
Jacqueline Rosenbaum
05:44:50 PM
Could you provide any application tips for "career changers" or speak to how amenable this program is for a "career changer?"
OK. Good question from Jacqueline Rosenbaum, Career changer. So I'm a career changer.
And so I'll just speak from my own personal experience. One of the things that spoke to me about the MSW as a career changer is that our practicum is 1200 hours and that we have practicum. You know, I looked into other masters programs and I knew as a career changer, I was going to need real substantive work experience before I graduated in order to get a job. And look, I came from engineering, so it probably doesn't sound you couldn't get much more different than social work, right?
Anya Regelin
05:45:25 PM
If applying early, must you accept if accepted? What is the benefit of applying early?
Umm. And I was right about that. Um.
And also besides that part, I wanted to have experience. I didn't want to go out in the world without having that experience. I knew I would have to continue to develop myself. Of course, a Masters is your grounding and then you continue to grow and develop throughout your career. But I wanted to go somewhere where you get very high quality practical experience. Now saying that on this end, from the application side, one of our colleagues who's not with us tonight, she is going to be hosting a.
An event? Um, I think it's two weeks from now.
Um or.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:46:13 PM
Hi Anya, decisions regardless of the deadline are not binding.
Imogen Micklewhite
05:46:18 PM
What does the process look like for applying to field placements? Do students have support with this process?
Yeah, November 3rd I believe, is the event where we're having an event with a little panel with some career changers who are students right now. So I would recommend you come to that and then I want, you know, some of the things I've suggested already. It's very important that we know why you want to do social work. And so I do encourage you to come to events, to watch some of these videos, to read about the professors, to learn more about social work as you're developing your application.
And to really think about your own why and why Columbia School of Social Work.
Um, we do not discount from anybody's professional experience. You know, if you work in advertising or whatever, any kind of field out there, you're a professional and you're developing certain skills and competencies that can be transferred and also build maturity in you. So those are nothing like that is seen as a negative and of course that's part of developing yourself.
Um, you know, if we look at your resume, though, and that's all you've done, and you've never volunteered anywhere or don't seem to have any indication of something around social justice?
Um, it raises more of a question than somebody who maybe he's been working in the retail world, but.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:47:42 PM
Hi imogen, the field practicum placement process is a collaborative effort. The Practicum Office will find a placement for you based on the way you answer your field placement form.
Has been, uh, maybe involved in a youth development agency and doing something there, OK? Or maybe sits on a board somewhere or whatever it is. So we're looking at you holistically. I hope that helps answer your question about career changing. It's a beautiful, this is a beautiful career to change into.
Maya Turnley
05:47:51 PM
Can we submit more than two letters of recommendation?
OK, uh, let's see a question. Do you arrange transfer for international students? How do you organize the admitted student? If not, keep if you're not able to travel? I think we do not organize the transportation we do have.
Lexa Nkhata
05:48:03 PM
Do you arrange transport for international students (kindly asking).? How do you Organize if the admitted student is not capable?
Jennifer Ramlall
05:48:23 PM
Hi Maya, we ask students to only submit two letters of recommendations. Submitting a third letter will have no impact on your application.
Um, every year it's in. We're evaluated on whether or not we'll have a global scholarship, but we usually have at least two, sometimes three global scholarships. Again, it's case by case every year that we we give, but it is, it's not for the travel part. I'm sorry about that. So again, if you are from another country, like I said before, start to look into scholarships, there was somebody from Ethiopia who applied last year.
Akinkunmi Oladejo
05:48:32 PM
Please can someone use unofficial transcript while he didn't submit the Wes evaluation?
And this person, There were so many scholarships available to students from Ethiopia but had not investigated those yet and missed a lot of the deadlines. So now is the time to be looking OK, so please, please make sure you do that.
T Tucker
05:48:47 PM
Also, if your goal is a therapy track for particular oppressed communities (sex workers, lgbtq+, etc.), would your field of practice choice be mental health or contemporary social issues?
Jennifer Ramlall
05:49:02 PM
Hi Akinkunmi, WES evaluations are required for international degrees during the application process and they must be sent officially.
Jacqueline Rosenbaum
05:49:15 PM
how many hours of practicum are needed to complete the MSW degree?
OK, T Tucker is asking specifically about like what would my field of practice be? For example, let me say if you wanted to work in specific oppress communities like SEC workers, LGBTQ Plus, etc. Would you feel the practice be health, mental health and disabilities? Or would it be contemporary social issues? Good question. It could be either. So the reality is your field of practice is 1 platform class, just one, and in that class you go deep.
Deep into the area of whatever it is you're studying, you learn a lot about policy. It's a more of a macro class, whether it's aging schools or health, mental health disabilities, when you go to your specialized year, and this is in your general last year actually when you do this.
Um, we give you a ton of of counseling to help you figure out your specialization and your field of practice and your top 4 placements of where you want to be.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:49:50 PM
Hi Jacqueline, 1200 hours are required for graduation.
Maya Turnley
05:49:57 PM
If admitted into the advanced standing program, does that mean that our first and only year on campus is the specialized year?
Umm, And that actually, that process is often where people pick their field to practice. Your once you're in school and you're meeting people, you know, maybe you're in a student caucus and you're talking to one of the final year students and they're an IPP, integrated practice and programming. You had no idea what that was before you came in, but you think what they're doing sounds really cool. So you start to look into IP instead of advanced clinical practice because you feel like that might be a better fit.
OK, so that's a piece of all of this.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:50:29 PM
Hi Maya, that is correct. The program is ten months and is your specialized year.
Shreya Chinnamatur
05:50:41 PM
Can you please go into more detail regarding scholarships and how to apply for them?
But the field of practice part, or I should say and um, often is decided when people are looking at the placements. So let's just say hypothetically, you start looking at placements and you start to notice that the ones that seem most interesting to you are contemporary social issues. Even though you thought you were going to do health, mental health and disabilities, it's fine. Then do contemporary social issues and pick advanced clinical practice, like that's how that might play out. And then you might, you know, alongside.
That you might be taking very specific sort of mental health.
Uh, type electives? Uh, Maybe you're taking, um, adults and psychopathology, for example. Or adolescents and psychopathology. Or social work in children and families, or.
You know, social working, grief, social work and trauma, whatever it is. So you're taking those kinds of electives and CSI's. What it ends up being. A lot of practicum placements are listed under multiple fields of practice.
O let's say um, you might have um, let's say an A mental health clinic that's placed inside a hospital, but it's for.
Children and adolescents, so this might be listed. It would definitely be listed under Health, Mental Health and Disabilities.
Um. It would be listed under Family, youth and children also.
Um, so there you go. So I would say in general the field of practice.
Is important, but sometimes can go by the wayside because probably the practicum placement is ultimately what matters most.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:51:57 PM
Hi Shreya, applicants should submit a FASFA to be considered for financial aid if they are eligible. International students do not qualify for aid, but do have some loan options with other requirements.
Melanie Abzun
05:52:10 PM
Hello and thank you for the presentation. I was wondering if you can speak more the on the smaller group presentations or resources available to students applying and if that is an opportunity to review application materials? Thank you.
Um, OK. So there's a lot of questions about scholarships and financial aid. On the second week in November, we're going to be doing a webinar in our office of financial aid is going to be here. So I encourage you to sign up because they're going to be able to answer all these different questions. So please come to that. I'm going to try to answer some other questions in the meantime. And if we can, I'll go back to the financial aid, but we are doing the webinar.
And it's going to be a whole hour. The team's going to be there. You can ask any question you want to them, OK? And they're also going to step you through different aspects of financial aid.
OK, so let me go back. Uh.
To some of these questions, um.
Sorry.
There's been, you know, there's a lot of general questions about licensing across states, licensing timelines and things like that.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:53:04 PM
Hi Melanie, the smaller group sessions are available to answer more specific questions that apply to you. If you have any questions about your materials, I am happy to discuss with you and you can send an email to cssw-admit@columbia.edu.
Imogen Micklewhite
05:53:13 PM
Would you be able to speak more about supervision that is offered to students? (how often?, with who?, individual vs. group?)
Jacqueline Rosenbaum
05:53:16 PM
thank you so much!
So first of all, we work with students, our graduates, our license, not only across the United States, but in other countries as well. We have somebody in our Office of Student Affairs, again going back to those student support groups.
Who?
Brittany Lizaola
05:53:20 PM
What are the benefits of applying by the priority deadline in December?
I don't know. I think almost half her job is about supporting students in their licensing or graduates. So you know these different states that are requiring.
Proof of different things. You know, each state has different requirements. She's she puts that all together. I know there's graduate in London, apparently that has taken up the most hours because they have so many different requirements. But again, we're supporting a student who's in the National Health Services in London to get her license, so.
We do work with everybody and we do have people across the country who are are getting their licenses and our Office of advising also will work with you.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:54:11 PM
Hi Brittany, the benefit of applying earlier is the option to appeal financial aid and plan better for your enrollment. Students who are relocating find the priority deadline appealing.
Around those things. OK. So that was one of the questions. There's other questions about when am I going to get my license?
Uh, you can get your license whenever you want to. Um. Once you start it, though, Um. OK, so let's let's take a step back.
Heejun Lee
05:54:28 PM
Actually, I already have a master degree of social work in Korea, should I submit the transcriptions of both bachelor and master degree?
Jennifer Ramlall
05:54:48 PM
Hi Heejun, you can include both degrees to your application.
Most states have some kind of license that people can get that's on the basis of earning a masters in social work. OK. So you've you've got this great body of knowledge and experiences that you've gotten and right as soon as you have that, you can take this exam. It doesn't mean it's a lower exam than an LCSW. It's a different type of license. In New York State, there's about it's almost half and half. I think there's 52 to 53,000 licensed social workers in New York.
State and it's literally like half and half are LMSW, the other half are C's. I'm an M personally because I'm not a clinician.
Brooke Tritz
05:55:00 PM
Are recommendation letters also due by the application deadline date?
And that's fine. It's not necessarily what I've wanted to do in my life. However, if I wanted to be a clinician now, after all these years are practicing, yeah, all I need to do is go out and start doing the hours. I did policy specialization, so I'd need to take a few extra clinical classes.
And then I can go do that now. Um, if any of you came to social work lives when we did the narrative.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:55:43 PM
Hi Brooke, yes letters of recommendation should also be received by the deadline. There will be a small grace period, but it is strongly encouraged to complete your application by the deadline date.
Uh, storytelling one. Uh, there was an example of a Policy specialization who later in life became a Clinician and so on. So once. However, most states have a time limit between when you earn those supervised hours for the Clinical. So like you can't do 2 years and then ten years later do another.
Melanie Abzun
05:55:53 PM
Thank you very much Jennifer!
Genesis Torres
05:55:56 PM
I was told that Columbia has a CUNY to Ivy program. If so, what are the details of this program?
You know your final thousand hours, right that that you can't do generally speaking I I think usually it's a five year, five year ish time frame that you need to do this kind of 3000 hours.
So anybody who's thinking about telling right now who wants to go into private practice, you know, the majority of therapeutic work in the private practice space is done by licensed clinical social workers. That's true, unequivocally.
Um, but you, I want you to think about all the steps it's going to take and who's going to support you in doing that. So I want you to think about, you know, your MSW, having very good practical placements and a good education, passing your first licensing exam, being able to go into a job with a good.
Clinical supervisor, right. And that sort of network of alum.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:56:40 PM
Hi Genesis, we do not offer a bridge program from CUNY, but we have a CUNY scholarship for students who earned their degree from CUNY.
Uh, you know, I was looking for somebody to come speak at UH as in this social work live series that I do. And I pulled up this very renowned nonprofit. I'm not going to say the name of it. I could not believe I was like, wow, this place is like run by the Columbia School of social Work alone. I was like, I could not. I mean, I was like, I was flabbergasted by how many Columbia lum are at this place, right. I interviewed somebody to again to work for me the other day.
Anastasija Ignjatovic
05:57:15 PM
Should the recommendation letters be written only by professors or could they be from volunteering advisors and mentors?
Jennifer Ramlall
05:57:30 PM
Hi Anastasija, Appropriate references include professors, the applicant’s most recent employer or volunteer supervisor, or those who know the applicant in a professional context. No personal references will be accepted, nor references from professionals with whom you have had a client or patient relationship.
Joni Wright
05:57:40 PM
what’s a priority deadline?
He's at a very big and renowned agency in the city and he said after a while, we just started interviewing from Columbia Law because we just had such good people from there. So they started from students who then went on to work there. So this is not to bad mouth my other colleagues, but I want you to think about that because when you're getting your 3000 hours, you'll be at some kind of agency doing that kind of work and getting experience, whether it's trauma experience, mental health experience, Both these are so interconnected, right? Maybe you're in a hospital.
When you're doing transplant experience, whatever it is that you're gaining your experience and your hours.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:57:53 PM
Hi Joni, the priority deadline is December 1st.
Isabelle Randall
05:58:01 PM
Do you recommend LOR from employers or professors?
Jennifer Ramlall
05:58:15 PM
Hi Isabelle, Appropriate references include professors, the applicant’s most recent employer or volunteer supervisor, or those who know the applicant in a professional context. No personal references will be accepted, nor references from professionals with whom you have had a client or patient relationship.
Um, And then you know you'll take your exam, right? And at some point along the way, you're going to start seeing people individually. But it takes time and experience and professional development. All of those things will lead to being able to, if you want to, have your own private practice. Many people work both in agencies and have a smaller private practice. Some people go on to develop a whole practice, sometimes with friends or peers. But you have to think about.
All these steps and what's going to support you along the way, OK?
All right. So we've gone through a lot of different questions. We're coming up on time. So um.
Isabel DiGiacomo
05:58:28 PM
What does priority deadline mean?
So there's a question about professors in the online program, the same as on campus. Yes and no.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:58:47 PM
Hi Isabel, the priority deadline offers students a decision by March 1st or sooner.
Everybody who teaches in the online campus has to go through a special online Academy to be able to teach because it's a different style of teaching. Almost all of our tenured professors have done that and did that with the launch. So many of them teach in that space. All online classes also have a tea and a tech person in them. So there's three professionals in every single online class. But there are some people who prefer to teach online and don't want to teach.
Nathania Santoso
05:59:05 PM
Hi Jennifer! I read in order to be eligible to take the LCSW exam you must finish your clinical hours within a certain amount of years. Can students take a gap year between getting their MSW and starting their clinical hours?
Residentially and vice versa. So that's why it doesn't exactly line up. We also for the online program, we have professors from across the country, so I know like we have this amazing woman who teaches in. She's based out in California.
PhD Gerontology out there and we wouldn't want to lose her because she's not based in New York so she only teaches in the online program.
That's a really good question. Thank you for that. Uh, let's see.
Jennifer Ramlall
05:59:44 PM
Hi Nathania, please check with your states guidelines as they may differ.
Genesis stories, if you're employed in social work setting in my place of work be my placement as well maybe and only partially. So we do have the one year residency program which is actually a three-year program, but the residency part is one year.
Genesis Torres
05:59:58 PM
If you are already employed in a social work setting, can my place of work be my placement as well?
And this is a part time program. So if you have two full years of basically direct practice experience by the time you apply not after but at the point of your application, we can consider you for the OIR program. That's a very special application.
Clara Marton
06:00:11 PM
How much control do students have over their clinical field placements?
The requirements are on the page. Please read those carefully. I read someone's application today who did not read those carefully. So you can use 14 hours of your current work for it and you have to do 14 hours in another part of your agency with a different supervisor.
So that might be a good question to do more one-on-one or in small groups, but so the answer, the question, answer to your question is a maybe, but it's certainly an option that we have. Please check into that.
Jennifer Ramlall
06:00:47 PM
Hi Clara, the field placement process is collaborative and you will work with an Associate Director from practicum to find the right placement for you.
America Armenta
06:00:50 PM
Is there somewhere I can access the list of practicum centers for the online program?
All right. We do not list the online, the practicum centers, although we certainly talk about those in our different events and different possibilities. Please keep coming to our events so you can hear more about all of them and we're certainly happy to talk to you more one-on-one about these.
Jessica Kim
06:00:57 PM
Is there a minimum number of hours required for experience in order to apply?
Sure. We OK let is it.
The likelihood of your practicum being played, your practicum placement being paid are is very unlikely at this stage. There is a movement for that, but right now it's not paid. These are learning.
Um, experiences and it's part of the professional.
You know, just in the same way UH medical students are trained in other areas, are trained and are not paid. This is the same idea as that.
Ah.
OK.
OK.
So lots of questions about what we look for.
In in students, again, we're really looking to see why you want to do social work and why you want to come to the Columbia social work and we're assessing you across all the things you've done. Again, you don't have to line up, You don't need to be a professional social worker to come. Why would you even come, right? You already have all that then. But we really want to see, see what it is. So I'll just tell you, I'll just say that because I've been reading applications.
Uh, when I read an application and it's not clear to me why this person wants to do a social work, that's that's a bad sign.
Um.
So uh, but somebody who can write? We ask you to write about a social issue. So it's clear to me that you understand that this is a social justice driven profession, right? There's many ways you can become a therapist, but this is a social justice driven person and environment, right? We're not pathologizing people, we're looking at them and their situation systematically. It's a strength based profession. There is an element of advocacy.
Right to all of this.
Um.
So just consider all those things, um, about social work and don't get too nervous because if this is the right profession for you and you've done your preparation.
I mean, you've taken a little bit of dive into the website, into some of our videos or publications or research centers, our professors. You'll be able to do this really well.
And um, your resume, I'm sure speaks for itself because you've been leading up to this point and what you want to do in your life. So don't don't get too nervous, because it will. It will unfold and then take time to put your application together.
OK, you know, take time. Have somebody check over everything, have somebody review your resume. Have somebody review your essays.
That's totally fine. That's totally allowed. As long as you're the original author, you can have somebody else look at them. There's nothing wrong with that.
Every book in the world has multiple you know, read the acknowledgement sections right. 10 pages of people help to get that book out. So please, please do that. OK, All right. So we are coming up on time.
Let's see.
I I I just just doing a last quick check Jen if you could just put the emails in again and.
Jennifer Ramlall
06:04:26 PM
Hello, I'm sorry if were not able to get to all of your questions
Jennifer Ramlall
06:04:48 PM
The small group sessions can be found here: https://socialwork.columbia.edu/admissions/connect-with-admissions/
To contact us please. Any follow up questions that you guys have been so great. I know this is a lot of me talking at you for an hour. Please sign up. We have a lot of small group sessions. This is a great way to meet with either me or another person from admissions and to ask all these questions in a very small intimate group. We'll have a lot of time to go deeply into your own situation in those settings. You can sign up for those on on on site the online.
Jennifer Ramlall
06:05:00 PM
you will find the tours and sample classes here
UM program. Jen will put the online e-mail here. And again, please, please come to our different events. Please stay tuned. We're sending out emails. Well, we have one e-mail, I know that's going out tomorrow, but we've got lots and lots of emails going out for lots of events. And I want to thank you again and for coming and your interest in the Columbia School of Social Work.
No matter what you do, please follow what's in your heart now.
Something's bringing you to the field of social work, so whether it's with the Columbia or another place, keep following that.
Jennifer Ramlall
06:05:31 PM
Please feel free to send your questions to cssw-admit@columbia.edu
Deeper meaning that's emerging in you at this time. All right, goodnight, everyone. Take good Care now.
OK.
Hallie Rossin Welsh
06:05:37 PM
Thank you so much!
Kar Dobinski
06:05:37 PM
thank you!!!
America Armenta
06:05:38 PM
Thank you for your time!!
Prakash Kondekar
06:05:38 PM
Thanx
Hannah Ableman
06:05:39 PM
Thank you!
Genesis Torres
06:05:40 PM
Thank you so much for your time and knowledge.
Nathania Santoso
06:05:41 PM
Thank you so much for you time and information!
Maya Turnley
06:05:41 PM
Thank you!
Jamila Peguero
06:05:42 PM
Thank you!
Jasmine Jackson
06:05:43 PM
Thank you!
Lizbeth Quintero
06:05:43 PM
thank you!
Brittany Lizaola
06:05:44 PM
Thank you!
Alyssa Romo
06:05:44 PM
Thank you!!
Shreya Chinnamatur
06:05:45 PM
Thank you !
Jessica Kim
06:05:45 PM
Thank you!
Jacqueline Segal
06:05:45 PM
Thank you!
Genesis Torres
06:05:46 PM
Have a goodnight!
Andrea Chang
06:05:47 PM
Thank you!
Thank you. Thank you everyone. That's very kind. Thank you. Thank you. Lovely to be with all of you. Goodnight.
Enjoy your evenings.
Angela Machado
06:05:50 PM
thank youu
Alex Sanchez
06:05:50 PM
Hi, I was wondering how are we to answer one of the essay prompts in the MSW application regarding a direct practice example if we will not start our practicum until the spring and then finish in the summer?
OK.
All right.
Meghna Singh
06:05:53 PM
Thank you so much!
Mercy Bello
06:05:53 PM
Can we be personally mentored by professors when given admission?
Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bYCkYLYy1A