Question About Western WNMU's BA Rehabilitation Services & Bachelor of Social Work

[Saharapost]

A relative of mine is interested in earning one of Western New Mexico University's degrees. He is eyeing either the BA Rehabilitation Services http://wnmu.edu/VirtualCampus/programs/B...tion.shtml or the Bachelor of Social Work http://www.wnmu.edu/academic/sw/. He asked me for advice on whether a degree in Social Work is more marketable than one in Rehabilitation Services. Ordinarily, I would go for Rehabilitation Services because I think there are many open doors in this field compared to Social Work, but I've asked him to give me a couple of days to get some advice from my Degree Forum family.

Though the websites provide some answers to the following questions, we would appreciate additional information from those who have experience in these fields, who are taking the programs, or who know something about these degrees. Which of the two degrees is better in terms of employment for one who likes working with people? Can one with a degree in Social work work in Rehabilitation Service field and vice versa? When it comes to further studies, which provides easy access to graduate programs? Thanks for your help.

[Jonathan Whatley]

Is he in the United States? The documents about field placements for the social work program appear to assume field placements under the supervision of U.S.-licensed social workers in the U.S. "Your practicum supervisor must have an MSW from an accredited institution, or two years of post-BSW experience, and must be in compliance with state licensure laws. Please provide a vita or resume for the proposed field supervisor." I can't immediately find similar requirements for the field experiences for the rehabilitation services program, but they might also exist.

[sanantone]

I don't know how difficult it's going to be for a person outside of the U.S. to earn a social work degree from the U.S., but the social work degree definitely has more utility. The rehabilitative services program looks a lot like an occupational therapy or occupational therapy assistant program. These are licensed professions; that degree probably won't lead to an OTA license in any state. OTs need masters degrees. The BSW leads to a license in the U.S. While most social work jobs will require a masters degree, a social work degree, in general, is very flexible. You can work in counseling or as a caseworker for a social services agency. Social workers can do all of the jobs listed on WNMU's rehabilitative services page. I could only imagine the title "rehabilitative services" confusing people in HR. Most of the time, social service jobs will ask for degrees in psychology, sociology, behavioral science, social work, counseling, or human services. I've rarely seen rehabilitation or rehabilitative come up in the title of a desired degree. I've seen more social service jobs ask for criminal justice degrees. If the person wants to do more hands on stuff, then I recommend an occupational therapy assistant or physical therapy assistant program with the proper programmatic accreditation. Closely related areas would be special education and speech language pathology assistant.

[Saharapost]

Thanks everyone for the feedbacks. Based on Sanatone's response and upon further inquiries, he has agreed that he'll go for the Social Work degree. He wrote to WNMU to find out whether they'll accept an unrelated Bachelor's degree into their program and most importantly, whether he can take all the courses via a distance (including practicals and field classes) without having to travel to the US. We got the following response.

...Our classes are a combination of completely online (asychronous) and real-time online (synchronous) classes. For the synchronous classes, you would have to log into the class at the time it is occurring - these are frequently offered in the evenings USA Mountain Standard Time (generally between 5:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m.) -for you, this may mean you're logging into class at 2:30 in the morning. These classes feel very similar to "Skype", and we have several students who attend class in this manner. In general, the majority of your courses would be regular online classes, but some -such as the practice and field classes- require this type of attendance.

I would strongly encourage you to consider our Master's in Social Work if you have completed a bachelor's degree. The program is a total of 66 credit hours, which is considerably less than would be required if you were to get the bachelor's in social work...

The only grey area is whether a Social Work degree, like a BSBA, can be used anywhere in the world. I have a feeling that earning degrees in professions that require licensure may only be useful in the country where such degrees are earned. I am not sure about this. Is this the case with a Social Work degree? Can it be used in Europe even when earned in the US?

[sanantone]

You would have to research whether European countries generally accept CSWE-accredited degrees or offer an easy path to licensure if one is already licensed in the U.S. Often, states in the U.S. are accepting of an equivalent accreditor in Canada, so the same is probably true the other way around. But, these two countries share a border and have similar cultures. At worst, your friend would qualify for non-licensed, social service positions.