[Jamie R]

Thanks for your reply, Don.

What you are suggesting sounds like something I would be interested in participating in several years in the future.

With regard to convincing the site managers to use a different platform, that I would be interested in participating in in the very near future (lol)

However, at the present moment I kind of just came here looking for like… a support group for oppressed right-brainers? Long story short: I am currently doing a Master’s degree in Social Work. I did not know before applying to this program that both social work as a profession and social work education are controlled by these governing organizations that are extremely controlling, micromanaging, and pretentious. Intuitive learning is not welcome here. Creativity is not welcome here. Self-determination is not welcome here. “Evidence-based practice” (read: reductive materialism) is the only valid form of social “work.” These people can’t even assign a 6-8 page paper without giving 3 pages of micromanagey guidelines for what the paper should be like.

I graduated from one of the world’s elite universities about 10 years ago with both a social science BS and a humanities BA. With honors. Where I am now, I feel like I am being fed baby food from a scientific measuring spoon. Nothing is challenging, it’s all shit I already know, (and/or things I can critique, but they don’t want to hear it), but they don’t allow you to use other academic credentials or work experience to exempt from or test out of required classes. I am not being challenged in any way. In fact, I feel like they are asking me to revert to a less intellectually mature state of mind just to meet their bullshit requirements. It’s completely demotivating.

The assignment I’m trying to work on today is called “your beginning philosophy of social work”. The idea is to articulate your philosophical/ethical etc point of view with relation to your future career/goals etc as a future social worker. The paper should be 3-5 pages, including a literature review, and should be “thorough” (lol). I am a 39 year old adult with a tons of both experience and exposure to philosophy, critical theory, etc. Lots of things have informed my perspective on this. Also, 3-5 pages is barely room for a literature review, even if that was the whole paper. I asked the instructor if I could write a longer paper, and she said no. I said I would need at least 20 pages to “thoroughly” discuss my perspective on this topic. She didn’t care, and said I should learn to write concisely (lol again).

From my perspective, it seems like the assignment guidelines have assumed a particular kind of student – one who is around 22 years old, just finished their bachelor’s degree, has little philosophical exposure, and little writing experience. The instructor of this course is way too attached to the rules of the assignment she created to make room for a student who does not fit the description of the student she designed the assignment for. As a result, it is an educational disservice to THIS student, because I am going to have to write a fake paper just to conform to her expectations, rather than doing genuine work that would contribute to my own growth. Classic left-brainer bullshit. No flexibility. Extreme attachment to predetermined rules. Inability to revise rules or expectations when it becomes clear that the world does not fit your expectations.

Please bear in mind, this is just one small example of the kind of things I have been dealing with every day in this program. Rigidity, pretentiousness, imagine themselves at a level of intellectual sophistication that they do not in fact possess, constant micromanaging, inability to see anything outside the blinders they have put on or the assumptions they have made, etc.

If I was paying for this nonsense, I would have left after 2 weeks. Lucky me, I got a full scholarship with stipend to do this, so I actually feel trapped into doing something I’d rather not do (I come from a low-SES background, so passing up a free master’s degree would feel unwise). I have resigned myself to putting up with this for the next two years to get the piece of paper that says I can do what I want to do (I intend to become a therapist).

As a person with strong right-brain-leaning tendencies, this is hard for me. I love to explore and try new things and be creative. Having to confine myself and check a bunch of boxes to fulfill the expectations of some bureaucratic, pretentious cult that has become so infected by fundamaterialism that it has lost any sense of spirit or imagination about what “social” work could be makes me want to literally scream.

Someone please give me a hug and a joint.