jmcomicÂþ»­

I have just completed my first year of a two-year Masters of Social Work (MSW) program at California State University, East Bay (CSUEB) this past June. The program is fairly new and the faculty and staff are often adjusting the program's curriculum each quarter. The program still has a good deal of work to do on the overall structure of the program/curriculum, such as finding the balance between having a reasonable amount of challenging coursework while limiting "busy work", becoming better at ensuring... Read More that the curriculum flows (i.e. the types of guest speakers are aligned with the topic that is presented that week) and etc. Nonetheless, I am satisfied with the school I chose to pursue my graduate degree. CSUEB's MSW program is focused on cultivating social justice focused, multiculturally humble urban practitioners and they genuinely work hard on fulfilling their vision. Their faculty, staff, AND students are proportionally diverse across age, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic, race, ethnicity (and more) lines. Due to this, the faculty, staff, and students have cultural capital that adds on to the knowledge that is presented in academia. Furthermore, although the faculty and staff are heavily overworked due to budget cuts, they are truly passionate about social justice, social work, and their students. The combination of the strong push and actual execution of diversity, cultural capital, passion, and the firm support by faculty and staff is what makes CSUEB's MSW program a great environment to foster social workers. If CSUEB's MSW program continues doing what they doing while working vigorously on making the program and curriculum better, it will be a very excellent program. Lastly, I am very appreciative of how reasonable the program is. I feel that it authentically attempts to provide coursework that balances what is humanly possible and what is presented in the "real world" and they really take into consideration the financial issues that comes with being a graduate student. They offer a pretty good amount of financial aid for graduate students and their student fees, living, and student stores are reasonably affordable.

I feel that the pros if the program are that there is good communication amongst faculty and staff. If a student has a questions regarding academics or finances, it is easy to contact a member of the faculty or staff. The program is also very diverse and the students and faculty are supportive of each other. The cons are that information regarding scholarships and grants are not made readily available by the financial aid department. Also certain classes are only offered once per year which can make... Read More it difficult during registration time to get the classes you need.