A Day in the Life of a BUSSW Student: Daniel
By Daniel M., Student Ambassador
The life of an MSW student can be tough–but rewarding too. There is an endless list of things to balance: field placements, classes, part-time work (many students work approximately 10 hours per week), side projects, personal life, and, of course, the elusive self-care routine. I’m hoping this blog post documenting many of the activities I manage will be helpful to incoming students as they navigate their student life at BUSSW.
This semester, I am enrolled in six classes, work at my field placement (internship) three days a week, have a part-time job doing macro social work, and I am assisting with a research project at the university. Whew! I’m tired just listing all that. So sit back, grab your favorite beverage, and join me as I describe my “Day in the Life.”
Background
My name is Daniel Mango and I am the lead student ambassador at BUSSW. I am currently a second-year student with a clinical practice major and a macro practice minor. I am also a dual degree student enrolled in the EdM program in Educational Leadership at BU’s Wheelock College of Education & Human Development. I chose to document a typical Friday since it is the day when I am the most engaged in all my activities.
T.G.I.F.
6:10 AM – Gotta get up to get down. I’m up and getting ready for my internship. I shower and grab a bite to eat. This is important! Eating well is key for MSW students because we tend to forget to take care of ourselves since we are always taking care of others. Feed yourself first!
I walk to my internship since I live right down the street from both my internship and BU’s main Charles River Campus in Kenmore Square. The walk takes about 30 minutes, which I use to get my mind ready for the day. It also serves as my daily exercise.
7:30 AM – Ready to rock. I arrive at my internship which is at Edward M. Kennedy Academy for Health Careers, a preparatory high school for students interested in health professions. It’s an awesome school that helps kids prepare for careers in the health field. Our student population is mainly students of color (95% of the students enrolled) and my primary job is to help them with any socio-emotional issues that may arise during the day. I also serve as an academic counselor (one of my favorite parts of the job – probably because I used to be a teacher), so I am responsible for ensuring that the students are prepared for the gamut of standardized tests they have to take throughout the year. I love my job and the kids I serve, so it’s a win-win situation for everyone involved.
8:00 AM – You can’t be great if you’re late. Each morning I sit by the front door at the attendance table to meet and greet students. This is one of the most important parts of the day because you become visible to the students and help them get familiar with you. Not all students open up easily, so you have to gain their trust and show them that you care about them. Saying “hi” and giving daps and handshakes is one way to help the students get comfortable with you. I always make small talk and tell jokes; the students love this and it makes my job easier.
8:45 AM – Time to get to work. After the students arrive, we put away the attendance table and I get ready to see the students on my caseload. I currently have eight students that I work with on a weekly basis. Some of them are very talkative and really invested in their meetings with me. However, other students are either shy or do not trust adults, which is where the real work comes in. With these students, I need an “in” to get them to realize that I am there to support them. Usually, we’ll talk about sports or play Uno—these kids love Uno! These ice breakers usually get them to open up and helps ease some of the tension that talking to a “therapist” elicits.
The main two therapy modalities I use in this setting are Motivational Interviewing (MI) and Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT). We don’t get much time to meet with students, so using brief therapy works and it allows us to set S.M.A.R.T. goals (i.e., specific, measurable) that are easy to develop, assess, and evaluate. The students are the experts of their lived experiences and my job is to support them and help them achieve the goals they set for themselves.
11:15 AM – Student crisis! Besides the eight students I see during the week, I also spend time with students in crisis. A crisis at a high school is probably just what you would imagine: drama, fights, etc. There is no limit to the things I see. Today, there was some drama brewing in the halls and a fight was about to break out. Luckily, my good friends on the Student Support Team (SST) intervened and broke up the fight before it got underway. My job in these situations is always de-escalation. We talk and then I have the students do some mindfulness practices – and believe me, they really do work.
1:30 PM – Early release. I love Fridays because my internship is done at 1:30. This gives me time to earn some money at my part-time job because my internship is unfortunately unpaid. All internships at BUSSW provide students with curriculum credit, but only a few internships are paid. To wrap up my day, I make sure all my notes are in Aspen (the system we use to track all our student interactions), say my goodbyes, and walk to my part-time job which is just 15 minutes down the street.
2:00 PM – I’m the macro n’ cheese. I arrive at my part-time job (20 hours a week) where I am a program coordinator for a community health research center. I love macro work because I can have an impact on the systems that affect my individual clients. Currently, I am assisting with the organization’s Youth-led Participatory Action Research (YPAR) program. Each summer, this program brings together youth of color ages 12-19 who are interested in research and gathering information from their communities. The program then works with the youth to help them change policies that affect their neighborhoods. This research usually addresses social determinants of health (SDoH) in these communities.
5:00 PM – The day is not done. I spend an hour working on a report for the funders of a university research project. For this project, I work with young adults with lived experiences of homelessness and housing instability. This YPAR project explores the barriers to obtaining housing, employment, and education for this population
6:00 PM – Classwork time. I now devote about 90 minutes to classwork. My day is tightly scheduled so that I can get the most out of it. With six classes, I have a lot of reading and assignments. Today I read six articles and wrote quick summaries about each article to prepare myself to discuss them in class. I read a lot, so I have developed some speed-reading strategies to absorb the information quicker. The ability to skim and grasp the main concepts when reading for class is a very important skill to develop as an MSW student.
7:30 PM – Me time — it’s date night. I make date night my Friday night routine. As social work students, we must take care of ourselves. We spend a lot of time listening to stories of trauma, helping others regulate their emotions, and fighting against massive systems that were designed to oppress. Given all of this, it is critical to find time to rest and decompress. Date night is my time, and it is especially helpful for me after a long day of pursuing and fighting for racial and social justice.
No two students at BUSSW have the same schedule or ‘day in the life’ experience. I hope that sharing my experiences can provide some insight for incoming students. While there are many challenges in graduate school – I hope you can see that the rewards are just as meaningful.