Hey everyone.
I graduated in July 2010 with a Crminology degree and I am now currently working as a Housing Administrator at a residential drug and alcohol rehab centre. My main duties are to make sure the houses for the clients are up to scratch but I also deal with all of the clients benefit claims as they are not usually in the right frame of mind to be sorting all of this out.
I was pondering to a three year counselling course but I have now decided that I want to do a MSc in Social Work.
I was wondering if you lovely people who have recently completed or are in the process or doing this 2 year postgraduate degree could give me an idea of what your timetable is like (how many days placement - what months, how many days do you have to be at university.
If there is any other information that you can give me about this then feel free to go ahead.
Oh and if anyone can give me any ideas of what to put in my personal statement woud be fab too.
Hiya,
I'm about to start an MA at Leeds and have just got my timetable which is essentially 2 full days a week in university. As with every course you have to do 100 days of placement each year. I think the idea is you do 6 months in uni and then 6 months full time placement, although the exact hours will depend on what your doing, I think you should expect the placement to be like a full time job! I'm starting in January so my placement should run from July to December.
It could be the situation is different at other unis, and on an MSc course.
Hope that helps!
hey there.
i think timetables obviously vary depending on uni but i am in my first year of the MSW at the university of edinburgh. my timetable is different every day, every week so there is pretty much no consistency. i was off thursdays in term 1 but this was to do my own self directed study such as visiting courts, hospitals, social work centers etc. i was on a ten day observational placement in december. my term 2 timetable is the same...different every day, every week. only in for 6 weeks and then i am out on my first practice placement from the end of february until the start of june. currently this term is criminal justice and i have a 3000 word essay on a criminal justice report/case study, a 3000 word essay on qualitative research, 1000 word research proposal, an assessed presentation, plus a ridiculously crazy amount of group work to fit in and various other non assessed reports and presentations and role play to be done.
hope that helps x
To be frank, I have found the MA course pretty much life consuming! If you love socialising tell your friends you aint going to be going out for a while. Its very full on with essays, placement and the dreaded D word - dissertation. Its managable but certainly not easy.Days in uni really dont matter, as when your not in uni you always have something you should be getting on with! Placement is great- get to put your learning into practice, however I found it difficult to balance part time work whilst on placement and having essays to do!
Good luck - sounds like you got experience that would make you a brill social worker!
Thank you to everyone who has posted so far!!!
Hello there,
well, first of all I would recomend pursuing this. In terms of days on placement etc, it varies according to the uni you attend. Some unis like mine (London Met) require your attendance 4 days a week during the first term, then 1 day a week during the 2nd term, as placement will be for the other 4 days for the duration of the placement (90 days for 1st one, amounting to 5.5 months).
If you are trying to work out whether or not you should arrange this around your work comittments, may I inform you that keeping up with the volume of reading required is quite challenging enough without the added pressure of a job on top of it.
anyhow, I do hope with all the responses you get, it will help you in coming to a useful conclusion.
best of luck
JennyB
Hey!
I have just been trying to find some information about the Leeds MA in Social work and you seemed to be the only person on here actually doing it!
I start the course in January and just wondered if you had any advice for reading or preparatory work before hand and also just about the course in general?
I am really excited about starting it, but extremely nervous too!
Hope your first year has been a success so far and that you're looking forward to your placement!
Cheers x
Hello!
In terms of reading, I looked a few general books on social work. There is a series called "Transforming Social Work Practice" and has various titles which are all quite easy to read and accessible. However, I wouldn't get too worried about doing lots of reading, things change a lot so its best to just keep up to date with the news and stuff on community care. We had a day in November when we could go and visit the Uni and meet the tutors and got given various bits of information. Also I think they sent us a list of books we might want to consider getting (probably in September, or around then). So you will get lots more information in time!
My only other advise would be that there will be plenty to do when you get there and you have to get on with stuff pretty quickly so if there is other stuff you need to do, like get a job, sort a house out etc its good to have that all sorted so you've not got extra pressures once the course is going. Other than that its great fun, and I'm sure you love it!
If you have any particular questions please ask away!