<p>In fairness to the college alumni offices, many of the Masters degrees, such as MSW and M.Ed. are degrees that are earned signficantly after graduation, often as part of a career path that already includes gainful employment. So, lacking an organization like the NSF that has tracked PhD achievement nationally for 85 years, it is difficult for the layman to get his hands on that data. </p>
<p>That's something that you almost have to research on a school by school basis through the alumni or career counseling office.</p>
<p>I would love to have readily accessible data for all post-grad degrees. I just haven't found it.</p>
<p>"Mini, Do you have any experience with MSW programs? If so, I'm curious about what type of undergraduate majors they prefer. Is it necessary to have a psych. BS or will something like sociology or even another liberal art degree be acceptable?"</p>
<p>Limited experience is that they don't care, though there are lots of early childhood ed majors, and political science majors. But I know some with majors in music, and art, and French as well. Generally speaking, the schools require a certain number of courses in biology, psychological, and/or social sciences. The best ones now require one year of paid or volunteer experience, though some will give credit for heavy involvement in human services at one's undergrad institution. </p>
<p>There are different kinds of programs as well. Some are heavily clinical, while others allow an emphasis on planning and management.</p>
<p>Wake Forest has a great psych program from what I have read and heard. Their masters in counseling program is very well respected and the head of that program used to be or still is the head of the American Counseling Association I believe.</p>
<p>To calculate the "helping people" index for any school find the number of Peace Corps and Teach for America volunteers, subtract the number hired by Ibanks and "top" consulting firms and divide by 100.</p>
<p>Barrons, I think that is true. One of the most interesting times I have ever had in an admissions office was reading through the "what our graduates do" book in the Earlham admissions office. It was very simple: they showed the business cards of various alumni in two HUGE volumes. There were very few CEO's among the bunch but lots and lots of social workers, teachers, NGO workers, psychologists, doctors, medical researchers, a smattering of professional musicians and artists, and at least two "puppet masters." My daughter was hooked on Earlham immediately.</p>
<p>Mini, thanks for the information. My daughter is becomming more and more convinced that she wants to do some sort of social service work, either for an NGO or for a domestic organization and has talked about the possibility of getting an MSW a few times. So, that is helpful information to keep in mind for her. I just don't have the energy to start investigating graduate school requirements for her yet. :)</p>
<p>Well, if she wants to build houses in India with my d. (she leaves in 3 weeks), or work with autistic children in Cambodia with my brother, just holla!</p>
<p>Thanks, Mini. I will keep that in mind. She's worked a bit in an orphanage in Mexico and works with Somalian refuges here in San Diego through Catholic Charities. I think she would love to help elsewhere and it is something I would love to see her do. </p>
<p>Is your daughter going to India this summer? Will you be joining her again?</p>
<p>Unhappily, I am not joining her. With aid from Smith (thank you!) she heads off first to Cambodia, where she will land at Angkor Wat to be met by my adopted brother, a child psychiatrist who has been retraining the entire child mental health workforce (most had been killed by Pol Pot), and works with autistic kids. Also visiting an old graduate school classmate, a Buddhist layperson, who maintains AIDS hospices in Phnomh Penh (how AIDS got to Cambodia is a quite a story!</p>
<p>Then she will fly to south India, work for and with flood and tsunami victims to rebuild homes, hopefully learn Tamil, study native botanical medicine, and help with international publicity, mostly by starting up our blog again (shantinik.blogspot.com) In the middle, she will go to another part of India to visit an old friend, the man I consider to be the world's leading educator, who is writing a foreword for my next book. On the way home, she will stop in Bangkok, to meet with folks into alternative development strategies. Quite a trip for a 17 year old! and I'm jealous!</p>
<p>Wow mini what an amazing opportunity. My S wants to eventually get into a clinical psych program working with drug and alcohol issues. He is working as a lifeguard and teaching swimming for 1 last summer, for here on in it will be internships. He is looking for some volunteer work however in his intended field. We do have some programs in town where he can work with the children exposed to drugs and alcohol in utero. The work with the autistic children sounds interesting, it is such a growing/changing field right now on the brink of discovery . How long is she going for?</p>
<p>She'll be away a little more than two months. Of course, she is a music composition major/Italian minor! But she is fast becoming a world citizen, which is what I wanted, so I can hardly complain when she isn't home! Strangely enough, her work in south India may lead later to an internship in Italy, as the organization she will work with has the largest number of its financial backers among Italian NGOs, and she will be spending her junior year at the Smith program in Florence. It's been really wonderful how the college has been helpful in knitting this all together.</p>
<p>We are ALWAYS looking for good folks working with drug and alcohol issues - they are, after all, the nation's number one public health problem, and most of the problems in the rest of our health care system could be taken care of if we could get a good handle on it. Internship opportunities are sometimes hard to come by, especially in desirable living areas, as certification for counselors in many states requires 1,500-2000 hours of internship among those who are already trained, so the competition is fierce.</p>
<p>Good point, he will probably do his internships in research and his voulunteer work in the field. Pomona is pretty good in their career office in helping with the internship part. Good luck to your D, she is going to go far in life! I too wish I could go! I work with a lot of autistic children in my practice and there is so much to still learn.</p>
<p>Mini, Smith just sounds like a perfect fit for your daughter. Some day i hope to meet you both (hear through the grapevine that you'll be in my neck of the woods (San Diego) later this month).</p>
<p>"If you really enjoy psychology, or in other words, want to go to grad school for it, you can do that wherever. My AP psych teacher used to be a prof at a small womens LAC in georgia (wesleyan college in Macon) and she has a couple students who are current Ph.D. candidates in psych at Stanford. </p>
<p>i dont think ive ever seen a college that doesnt offer psych as a major.. or a college that didnt say "intro to psych" is the class that has the most students in it."</p>
<p>Do you mind if I ask what your AP teacher's name was? I am currently going to Wesleyan College, so I was just wondering. And, yes, Wesleyan has a very good track record of sending girls from our psychology department to well respected graduate schools.</p>
<p>im from ucsd, so of course i gotta rep it...from my experience, the teachers here are very qualified, but i don't know about other schools so i am very biased</p>