Dual Degrees

Noa Eagles ’15, M.S.S. ’16

I was a McBride Scholar as an undergrad. That program was exactly what I needed—the college education with flexibility and an amazing group of like-minded peers. My plan was always to go to graduate school for social work, and partway through undergrad, I heard about a potential A.B./M.S.S. program.

At the time, it didn’t even exist. Sarah Bressi and Janet Shapiro, professors at GSSWSR, wanted to create a bridge between the sociology undergrad program and the graduate social work program. They already had one person slated for the pilot, and I heard they were hoping to have at least one more. So Hayley Burke ’15, M.S.S. ’16, and I paved the way—seeing what did and didn’t work. The professors were fantastic and supported us in times when we thought it was too difficult. The fact that we did it—that’s the highlight of grad school.

I loved the fact that I could get my master’s degree in less time. Time is precious when you have two kids, and I wanted to get out into the field as soon as I could. My older son was three when I started Bryn Mawr, and I had my younger son two years into undergrad. Everybody loved them. I would come to meetings and events wearing the baby in a carrier, and people would pass him around. My older son was known for swimming in the pool outside of Radnor in his little boxer briefs. They were like little honorary mascots.

I now work with at Devereux Children’s Behavioral Health Center. It is an acute inpatient hospital for children ages five to 18 who are in crisis for mental health or behavioral challenges. I also have a private practice where I see adults. The A.B./M.S.S. program helped shape my career vision and provided me with the tools to assist in others’ healing. My time there was invaluable.

Alice Podolsky ’20

I have known I wanted to major in psychology since I was in middle school, so I started working on those requirements as soon as I got to Bryn Mawr. The psychology department is really phenomenal, and the highlight of my academic career here has been getting accepted into the A.B./M.S.S. program.

Overall, the people are really what make this program so amazing. I feel very grateful for the connections that I have made. Tamarah Moss has been absolutely phenomenal in teaching my Foundation Practice class, and Darlyne Bailey and Meagan Corrado are two other professors who have amazed me with their profound depth of knowledge and their notable approachability.

My first semester in the A.B./M.S.S. program, I interned at a Mastery Charter Elementary School, where I engaged in group facilitation, community resourcing and outreach, and trauma-informed practice. My next semester, I was at Belmont Behavioral Health Hospital working with dualdiagnosis patients, where one of said diagnoses is substance abuse. With the shift that COVID-19 created, my resourceful supervisor at Belmont was able to accommodate my work so that I could work on suicide safety planning from home.

I am thrilled to be graduating with my master’s degree for a multitude of reasons. I love research, and social workers can still do research! And now I can be much more critical of the research and literature I review and conduct in my own practice. Even though I stopped considering a highly clinical path years ago, my interest is being reignited, as I see the great need for social workers in research. I hope to either work toward my L.C.S.W. or directly apply to a doctorate program in psychology.