Social Work and Counseling

A medical social worker for Michigan Home Health care who has also worked as a youth counselor and runaway program coordinator feels that writing skills are very important since she communicates with doctors, nurses, and other agency personnel through reports and letters.  She says, "Good writing skills enhance my ability to interact on a highly professional level."  She finds that her English major was especially helpful to her career in that it required her to "develop individual ideas and support . . . them with logical reasons, evidence, etc."

A therapist with emotionally-disturbed adolescents in Chicago says that writing skills are "essential" in her job, since "daily progress notes that document therapy sessions must be clear and concise," and "clinical summaries and reports must accurately describe treatment interventions and assessments of the students."  She finds that her critical reading skills are "tested when gathering information from the student files. . . . Critical reading skills help to extract pertinent material in a time-efficient way."  She feels that her English major has helped her express her clinical thinking "in an accurate and detailed manner" and adds: "I feel very confident with my oral communication skills.  Having an enriched curriculum that includes building vocabulary and comprehension skills helped to develop my written as well as oral expression."

An alumna who has just left a position as social worker for the Huron Services for Youth in Ann Arbor found writing skills to be "very important" to her job, since she had to write many reports on her clients.  She feels her English major prepared her well for her job and notes that "my writing skills helped me obtain my job as a social worker, as I had to write many reports."