Back to the Books

As many of you know, I graduated from Brigham Young University last year with my Bachelors of Science in Social Work. I've always wanted to get my masters, and I think it's time.

Luckily, if you have a BSW (Bachelors of Social Work), you can apply for a one year Masters of Social Work program and it's called the Advanced Standing Program! The undergraduate course work is viewed as the equivalent of the first year of the Masters Program, and the 33 credits of the BSW program are transferred into the MSW transcript.

So... I have been doing lots of research about different Advanced Standing programs here on the east coast. My list included...

Virginia Commonwealth University Fordham University George Mason University

Columbia University New York University Howard University

Brigham Young University University of South Carolina

Some of the factors of greatest concern for me (us) were COST, cost, cost of tuition, cost of living, cost of credits, Location, family, and the actual quality of the social work program... and how likely I would be to actually get in.

So for the purposes of limiting my application fee budget, I narrowed my list down to 3 schools! Which are... drum roll...

• University of South Carolina Columbia, SC
  
• Howard University Washington, DC
  
• Fordham University NYC

My senior year of high school I swore that I would move out of South Carolina and never come back. Who knew in just 6 years, I'd be deeply interested in the idea of renting the house next door to my parents!! Apparently it's for rent to own right now for only $900/mnth!

I'm thinking of opening the back door and saying, "'Liza! Can you find Oma? Where's Oma?" and letting her run free next door! Beautiful, right? Obviously, a grad school program will be intense, so it would be huge to have my family's support and extra baby-sitting options!USC also has a really good social work program. The recruiter told me that many BYU students like the diversity that USC offers them in comparison to UT. I thought that was funny. Their curriculum is a little bit more Research/Analytical heavy, but I think I should be able to take 3 waiver test to at least get out of a couple of them.
Fordham University is a really great social work school in NYC, and I would actually be going to class in Lincoln Center! So cool! Steve and I LOVE NYC and have always wanted to move back there someday. The cost of living is high, BUT there are great illustration opportunities for Steve (unlike SC). But luckily, with Steve's job, he could work from home doing basically the same thing he does now as a freelancer for his same company. I LOVE Fordham's curriculum and would also LOVE my field clinicals too working back in Harlem or the Bronx again.
Howard University is the most expensive but probably the best school on my list. The Meldau family ultimate plan is for us all to end up living somewhat close to eachother, so we've tentatively decided on Washington, DC. It has great illustration opportunities even though it's expensive, but it's also a little more family friendly than NYC.

So I thought I'd get things started off right, and instead of working on my personal statements and applications, I decided to procrastinate and write a blog post instead!

I think I already know what most people's opinions would be on which school they think I should go to... BUT just for fun, what would your vote be?

And anyone feel like being a generous, altruistic benefactor and sponsoring my grad school education??? Yeah, these are the days one wishes for a fairy godmother.