Study Social Work at Otago

Emma Crabbe:

Hi, my name is Emma and I am a Social Work and Community student at the University of Otago.

I came here when I was about 18, thinking I wanted to do a different degree, and then I kind of realised it wasn’t what I wanted to do. I went to the Career Center and got a lot of help around what was actually right for me, and then they helped me see that what I want to do is empower people and empower social change in the community. That’s when I found myself at the Social Work department.

I guess the main reason that it’s so interesting to me is because it’s something I’m genuinely passionate about. It’s really meaningful work, and you get to go on placement. It’s mostly internally assessed, and so everything that you’ve put out feels really important. Like in fourth year now, we’re writing our own frameworks.

Liz McCafferty:

Hi, I’m Liz. I’m from the Social and Community Work here at Otago, and I’m here to tell you a bit about Social Work — and what it is that you’ll be studying, and what it is you might end up doing if you study Social Work here at Otago.

So the first thing you might want to know is where social workers might work. Often we think about the care and protection as the main place where people are employed, but actually there’s a huge number of places that you can — it’s really varied. You can work in health and hospitals, that’s a big employer. Obviously there is Oranga Tamriki as a big employer. Plus, you have community organisations that work with young people, children, and families. So there’s a really wide range of places that you can work in Social Work.

If you come to Otago to study Social Work, you would begin by studying a general degree around sociology, learning a little bit about human development, about how society works, and how we can create change for people.

I think that’s a big driver — why people want to do Social Work — is around actually making a difference for people. That’s certainly why I came into it.

All of our teachers, including myself, are Social Work qualified. We have been Social Work practitioners, so we’ve been in the field and have seen how it works.