With their first semester under their belts, the eight new USC School of Social Work doctoral students are surely feeling a tremendous feeling of pride … and relief.

For some of these students, entering the doctoral program was a successive continuation of their educational careers. However, for most, the decision to enter a classroom after a long respite was based on years of professional experience.

“I haven’t been in school for 10 years,” said Melissa Bird, who received her Master of Social Work from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Before joining USC, Bird worked as a lobbyist for Planned Parenthood of Utah, writing legislation that advocated for the organization. After deciding to pursue her doctorate degree, USC quickly became her top choice when she realized Bruce Jansson, the Margaret W. Driscoll/Louise M. Clevenger Professor of Social Policy and Administration, was on faculty.

“When I realized that Dr. Jansson was here, I was a bit star struck,” said Bird. “I had used his advocacy model to write six pieces of legislation. It was thrilling to meet with him, and to be working on research that will justify and validate advocacy as an intervention is exciting.”

Bird is not the only student who was interested in working with one of USC’s tenured faculty. Both Nicholas Barr and Rebecca Lengnick-Hall made USC their top choice because of a desire to work with a specific professor.

“Initially, I wanted to work with Dr. John Brekke, but then I was wowed by the program at USC,” Barr said, who worked as a social work intern at psychiatric clinics while attaining his MSW at UCLA and continued that work after graduation for two years.

Barr’s research focuses on evidence-based practices for individuals with serious mental illness. He is interested in mindfulness-based interventions and brings aspects of his religious studies background in Buddhism into his ideas.

“Social workers need to have a leadership role in developing research,” Barr said. “How can interventions prevent the development of certain pathologies? My clinical background strongly informs the research, and the people at USC really value that. You don’t find that in other programs.”

A desire to promote social work as an interdisciplinary profession at the organizational level is what drives Lengnick-Hall, who holds a dual master’s in social work and public affairs. She said the progressive manner in which Michalle Mor Barak, the Lenore Stein-Wood and William S. Wood Professor in Social Work and Business in a Global Society, approaches social work as a science is what made her want to attend USC.

Gordon Capp was also attracted to the progressive linkage of science and social work as a profession articulated at USC. His research interests surround community and mental health, with a particular focus on working with schools. Capp taught in the public school system for five years before attaining his MSW. He spent the last seven years at the Community Family Guidance Center in Cerritos, Calif., working with child welfare and issues pertaining to mental health.

“In community health practice, it feels like such a narrow sphere of social work,” Capp said. “But the opportunity to try to make social work better with the goal of ending people’s suffering is great, and USC has impressive leadership in research.”

Capp said being part of USC provides a nice way to be collaborative and supportive of each other despite the diversities in interests among him and his fellow classmates. Mor Barak, the director of the doctoral program, agrees this is a unique group of students.

“This new cohort of incoming doctoral students is extremely talented,” said Mor Barak. “They bring a wide spectrum of research interests and diverse backgrounds that will further enrich our program.”

For instance, Chung Hyeon Jung is experiencing life for the first time in the United States. He is from South Korea and graduated from Seoul National University. He became interested in social work after witnessing the growing health disparities for minority immigrants, namely North Korean refugees, in South Korea.

“They suffered from mental and physical health issues at a much higher rate, and I felt that it was caused by social reasons,” Jung said. “I came to USC because Los Angeles is the best place to research immigrants because of the diverse population, and the school is very interested in the problem of health disparities.”

The stars aligned for Jung in that his faculty mentor, Lawrence Palinkas, the Albert G. and Frances Lomas Feldman Professor of Social Policy and Health, was currently working with a student conducting research on North Korean immigrants.

The research clusters at USC are also a serendipitous aspect of the school for the students. Andrea Lane has found the perfect home in the Child Development and Children’s Services cluster working with Jacquelyn McCroskey, the John Milner Professor of Child Welfare, with foster youth in Los Angeles County. Lane previously worked with the California State Senate, where she heralded legislation regarding child welfare laws.

“Part of the reason I left the senate was because I was frustrated with not being involved in the creation of ideas,” Lane said. “I was trying to clean up issues involving families with sexual trauma, but I want to prevent them from happening in the first place. The research interests of USC were really in line with my own.”

Likewise, Katherine Sullivan is transitioning from six years as a community mental health clinician into research involving the impact of trauma for military families.

“The military cluster is really addressing this issue more than other schools,” Sullivan said. “I was afraid that entering academia would remove me from the being connected to social work, but I see how this program allows me to be productive in the academic community and still relate to clinicians.”

Finally, the Behavior, Health and Society cluster is a great fit for Jaih Craddock, who said the interests of her mentors in the cluster align perfectly with her own.

“My current research interests are on HIV risk in black communities and how black family dynamics influence adolescent and young adult sexual health decision-making,” said Craddock. “I am currently working on a skill-based HIV intervention for homeless women, and I'm excited about this opportunity. USC has proven to not only have a strong family style network, but also a strong pride in their contributions to the world.”

Although all the students feel the program at USC is difficult, they agree it is worth the effort.

“The curriculum is very good… and hard,” said Jung. “The core classes are tough, but we are learning a lot about macro and micro methods and statistics, and they will all come together in the end.”

Capp agreed with this sentiment, stating he is being challenged in ways he did not expect.

“The first year is tough,” said Capp. “It is hard work, but the way it is changing my immediate and long-term life is amazing.”

Bird said she is also experiencing changes in her life for the better, crediting the depth of instruction at USC.

“The level of education to inform the field of practice is amazing,” said Bird. “I have never absorbed this much information ever. It’s changing the entire structure of how I think.”

Mor Barak believes this new class will further enhance the existing cohort of highly promising scholars-in-the-making and looks forward to seeing how they will benefit from the unique training experiences within their specialized research clusters.