Earn Your Degree in Social Work, Fully Online

Becoming a social worker may allow for more career opportunities than any other type of liberal arts major. If you think of social workers as just the individuals who take applications for food stamps or arrange foster homes for disadvantaged children, think again. A social worker with a Bachelor degree may work in any field from academic research, to government entities. Advocacy organizations, for example, might work with an alcoholics anonymous group or with families who have children suffering from autism. continued below »

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They might help arrange funding for needed medical procedures, locate appropriate educational facilities, or manage support groups for several people suffering from the same problem. On the health care level, social workers keep a watchful eye on people receiving home health care, on residents in nursing homes, and on patients in hospitals. They interact with both families and clients, making sure individuals’ rights and well-being are attended to. In business and industry, social workers may have careers as public relations experts or as employee counselors.

The salaries in social work are as varied as the careers with non-profit or faith-based organizations usually paying the least and government organizations or health care facilities paying the most. Education and rehabilitation organizations are usually somewhere in the middle with the actual salary being determined by geographic location, education and experience.

When searching online for your degree program, it will be helpful to narrow your search a bit. For example, you might be interested in teen counseling. Thus, you might get a degree in social work with electives that would open doors as a youth pastor, high school counselor, or community family services. You should be aware, however, that if you want to work in a public school setting, you will be required to have either a bachelor or master degree in education with an emphasis in a counseling field.

A degree in social work means lots of courses that involve reading. You will read both fiction and non-fiction literature along with actual case studies of people with different types of needs or problems. You will also make your own observations and write your own research papers and case studies. A social work degree is heavy in courses like English composition and literature, psychology courses, history, social sciences, anthropology and cultural studies courses. While you will learn to use and understand statistics, you will not need subjects like physics, advanced math or lab based sciences. And since many of the courses in a social work (also called “Human Services”) curriculum are non-sequential, you may be able to take some of your major related courses along with the basic core classes that are usually required of all incoming freshmen. Thus, if you can handle the reading load, you may be able to complete a degree in as little as two to two and a half years. Finally, if you already have an associate degree in almost anything, you will be able to complete a Bachelor of Human Services program in about 18 months.

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