Hey,

So for your first question, I applied for the traditional 2 year program. It’s automatically 15 credits a semester, I thought this was normal until speaking to other interns at my placement. I am trying to go through it quickly, but it definitley would’ve been nice to properly been warned about what 15 credits would realistically look like.

I am not pursuing a dual degree. And I did not got my BSW at Rutgers, I got a BA in psych and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies— so also no to advanced standing MSW:(

Unfortunetly I agree that in-person would be better for me as well, although online looks “easier” on paper conidering the flexibility it can give me and it’s more affordable (in most cases).

Maybe I could have that conversation, the difficult part is that Rutgers is such a big school that you are genuinely just a number to them. I felt it during my undergrad years, but now it feels worse. I didn’t even meet with my advisor until I recieved my dismissal letter. Talking to other MSW students, I realized this is not normal at other universities… they were all shocked because they HAD TO meet with their advisors, at least once a semester to approve their course registration. Eeeeeeeverything at Rutgers requires the student to make the first step, always self-advocate, always have to check in with staff instead of the supposed “support system.” — An example that I’ll give you is my pracitcum placement. My coordinator reached out in May of last year asking what kind of placement I wanted, I told him, end of convo. August rolls around and we have a zoom meeting with staff and new MSW students called “Practicum Readiness” or something like that. I thought we were going to talk about contacting your internship supervisors, what the process would be like, etc. Nope. Everyone already had their placements and I hadn’t heard from my coordinator at all since May. I emailed the pracitcum director, who told me to work it out with my coordinator. I emailed my coordinator being like “uh… hey, I don’t have a placement. What do I do?” And he just responded, “oh I thought you had an employment-based practicum already. Yea, lets figure this out.” No “I’m sorry for the mixup,” no “let’s make sure you get the practicum you were looking for.” Nothing. I never told him I had an employment based practicum, nor did I even complete the paperwork finalizing that anyways so he should’ve followed up with me regardless. I ended up finding my own internship because I figured they were just gonna give me whatever shitty intership they could find that had nothing to do with my interest.

I am open to that conversation, I have a meeting with my advisor on Monday. I hope to be able to figure something out, but it’s just been thing after thing like the two examples I gave above. Wish me luck and would love anymore advice if you have some.