Kansas State University

ABOUT SOCIAL WORK

What is Social Work?

• Social Work is a dynamic, changing, and challenging profession with a vast array of career options and rich opportunities for deep personal satisfaction.
• Professional social workers are experts who help people obtain the resources they need to live with dignity.
• Social workers are also committed to making society more responsive to people's needs.
• Social work's historical mission has been helping the disadvantaged, those who have been excluded from participation in the ideal of a just and equitable society.
• Contemporary social workers also assist people from all walks of life, with all kinds of problems, in all kinds of settings--rich, poor, black or white, young or old, in hospitals, at home or at work.
• Social work is a profession for those with a spark of idealism, a belief in social justice and a natural love for working with people.
• Social work offers a person a career with the chance to work with and for people of all kinds and needs.

Why Major in Social Work?

• You want a good job and one that "makes a difference"
• You like to help people, see them grow and change in positive ways
• You want a degree that offers maximum flexibility in the job market
• You want a professional degree – one that prepares you for a position as a professional social worker
• You like to get out of the office and meet people, no sitting around for you!
• You believe that everybody deserves a chance at a better life and you want to help them have it
• You have been told that you are a great listener and helper and want to make a career out of what you do well
• You like to learn about others' ways of thinking and behaving
• You are interested in different cultures and ways of life
• You like being around kids
• You like being around older adults
• You like being around teenagers
  
• Basically, you like people and believe in the value of helping others to "be all that they can be"