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“Plan A” for me was pursuing a music career—to become a “famous” performing singer-songwriter—a dream I’d held since the age of 4. After a B.A. in English, publishing jobs, and AIDS/HIV work, music performance eventually became my full-time occupation. I accomplished things that I had always wanted to as a child—perform at Newport Folk Festival, make CDs, be on a label, tour Europe and the U.S., it was all very exciting. Then two significant events induced a midlife crisis, sending me into that perennial “search for meaning”—one that could only be found by looking inward, a strange land. My second calling of social work hollered through this back door. But I will always keep one foot in my music and songwriting; it is my oxygen.
Before applying to social work programs, I had spoken with psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and the like and told them what my emerging interests were—to do therapy and, now being in mid-life, to get a very respectable degree in less than a decade! Smith’s M.S.W. program appealed to me because of its reputation, which is second to none in its rigorous clinical program and field placement training. I came to realize that this program suited me well; ten intensive weeks of school followed by eight months of near-full-time field placement allowed me to “dig in” with each endeavor. Smith M.S.W. students, I came to find out, are held in very high regard in the work world, which translates into social capital (a principle learned in my second-year racism class!).
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My first-year field placement was a great learning experience and one for which I felt well prepared and supported by Smith. I worked in a sexual-abuse-prevention program near my hometown of Albany, N.Y., and I found that the work reinforced my career choice. Mostly, what I worked with were the effects of trauma, not so much the trauma itself. I was able to locate my therapeutic approach through my first year theory classes, as well as through additional reading while in the field. Supervision is critical, and I was able to use that to its best advantage possible. Going into the second year of classes with some practical experience is an even more exciting venture. I now have clients in mind every time we study one theory or another; it all “comes together” in the second year, inducing a new richness in the process of becoming a therapist. I am really looking forward to my second year of placement with children and their families.
The learning experience at Smith has challenged and reaffirmed some of the deepest core values I’ve held throughout my life—and that experience has been very positive, very awakening. The intense immersion into clinical, psychodynamic theory is unique in comparison to other social work schools. But Smith’s M.S.W. program does not operate in a psychodynamic vacuum; indeed Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), using an integrated approach, is so widely used in agencies, and coursework is available at Smith using CBT theory. Rooted in both the classical and the contemporary, Smith’s program keeps a close eye on modern times, especially as it relates to issues of culture, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual preference, and religion, etc. Students are challenged constantly to explore their deepest biases; nobody leaves Smith’s M.S.W. program without experiencing some growing pains and some resulting triumphs. As the summers chug by, I realize that my choice was the right choice. I am grateful that Smith’s M.S.W. program chose me, as I certainly chose Smith!
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