A BSW degree from Binghamton University prepares students for generalist practice and will focus on understanding social work values, ethics, and professional behavior. Through a generalist lens, students will gain the knowledge and skills they need to work with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities. Students will:
- Explore historical oppression, and structural inequality and work towards navigating complex systems;
- Increase their awareness of social injustices and the impact that social injustice has on access to education, resources, and services; and
- Learn how to maximize the empowerment of clients and communities to reduce clients' and communities' experiences of oppression and institutional violence.
The curriculum is designed to create explicit linkages between practice, policy, and research. Students will:
- Build knowledge around basic concepts and principles of research and create an understanding that for social work practice to be effective, it is important that social workers be both consumers of, and contributors to, research efforts that aim to build knowledge and improve social work practice;
- Gain knowledge about human development across the lifespan and become familiarized with a variety of frameworks for interpreting the interactions among human biological, psychological, social, cultural, and spiritual systems as they affect and are affected by human behavior; and
- Be provided with a foundation for understanding social problems and social welfare policies in order to prepare them to become informed and competent providers of social welfare systems.
Internships, Research Opportunities, and More
Field Education is the social work profession’s signature pedagogy and a pivotal part of the BSW curriculum. All students in the BSW program will complete an internship in their senior year of the program that runs concurrently with courses and a field seminar. Students will spend 15 hours a week in their internship for a total of 510 hours for the year (240 hours in the Fall semester and 270 hours in the Spring semester). Students will receive weekly supervision through a licensed social worker throughout their internship experience.
Students may be placed in a variety of agencies (child welfare, criminal justice, substance use, healthcare, mental health, schools, etc.) throughout a 100-mile radius of the University. Students will have opportunities to serve the local communities and will work directly with individuals, families, groups, and organizations.