The BSW program prepares students for a variety of professional positions in agencies that help people with life's problems. Often, though not always, people in need of social service assistance are people with low-income. A social worker might work in jobs ranging from adoptions to counseling pregnant teenagers to helping grieving parents in a hospital, and an incredibly diverse variety of other kinds of helping jobs. The BSW programs helps prepare students to work in any type of social work setting. Roberts Wesleyan College BSW program is unique because of our Christian perspective on how to help people.

Students come into Roberts Wesleyan College as freshman or transfer students. (Transfer students should set up an appointment with the BSW Program Director as soon as possible to be sure they are taking the right courses to graduate on time.) Freshman should take Introduction to Contemporary Social Work in their very first semester. This course exposes students to the range of social work opportunities. Beginning in this first semester students have their first experience in providing services to people in need. Each November the BSW program transports students to the Rochester Salvation Army Christmas Voucher Program. Students interview low-income people for eligibility to receive food and gifts for Christmas.

During the first two years of the BSW program students take a few social work courses, but primarily students take liberal arts courses to provide a firm knowledge base. These courses include history, biology, writing, literature, Bible and numerous other classes. At the beginning of the junior year social work students are interviewed for formal admission into the major. At that point students must have achieved a minimum grade point average of 2.25, must show emotional maturity, have good communication skills and show potential to work as a professional social worker.

In the second semester of the junior year students engage in a 6 hour per week agency placement. We work hard to help students be placed in agencies that interest them. This is often the first opportunity students have to experience the type of work they want to spend their career doing. The junior placement is only part-time, while students are taking classes to help them prepare for practice.

In the senior year the last semester is a full time placement in a field agency. Students who found their junior placement a good fit often continue on in the same agency. Other students find they want to try a different type of agency.

By the time students graduate each has the practical skills to begin working as a professional social worker. Some students elect to continue on into advanced standing in a graduate social work program. In order to be accepted into the advanced standing program at Roberts Wesleyan College (reducing a 2 year MSW program to 1 year) students must have a 3.25 grade point average.