First Week In Review

Since I'm about to start my second full week of the semester, a review of the first full week seems in order.  I've been back at my field placement since 5 January, but classes just started again this past Wednesday.  Field is still pretty good- I love the kids I work with and my supervisor is really awesome, but part of me still really wishes I wasn't in a school.  Between my experiences at JCB last year and the fact that I've never really wanted to be a school social worker, I feel like I might not be getting as much out of this year's placement as I might be.  But, since I'm not actually placed with the DOE, I have access to all of the resources and that trainings that Safe Horizon offers, which is really phenomenal.  (No, seriously, click the link and see how freaking awesome my agency is!)  Next year, I plan on doing something wildly different, but for now I am going to enjoy the people and clients I work with and the opportunities I am getting.

And then there are my actual classes.  Wednesday kicks off with my Social Work Research class, which I was dreading.  Granted, I've only had one class, but it seems like it won't be as deadly boring as I was anticipating.  My professor is quite dynamic and she's keeping the lecture to a minimum.  We're using the bulk of class time to work on our group proposals, which will hopefully limit the amount of times we have to meet as a group outside of class.  I don't know who's in my group yet, but so far that class seems to be shaping up well.  My Wednesday afternoons are HBSE (Human Behavior and the Social Environment), which I had some pretty major issues with last semester.  It is team-taught and every few weeks we get a new professor and a new topic.  The professor we have now is awesome, so I'm hoping the second part of HBSE will be an improvement over the last one.

Thursday mornings I have Direct Practice with Individuals, Families and Groups, which is the follow up class to Foundations of Social Work Practice from last semester.  This class and this professor are much more my style- working from the basic clinical theories and then applying them to micro social work practice.  And, finally, Thursday evenings I have Advocacy in Social Work Practice, which I'm pretty sure is going to be my favorite class.  It's focused on macro practice and social justice.  My professor is a social worker and a lawyer and is so brilliant and passionate about everything he does.  He is involved in so many fabulous projects and causes, which hopefully I will find a way to get involved in.  And, on a not-so-academic note, he looks like a more attractive version of Baltar.

Second semester is shaping up nicely.  Although ask me again around midterms and I may have a different opinion.