I teared all the way to tuition yesterday after getting tagged by a facebook note one fellow social work student wrote. Year 2 especially my attachment at Prisons was when I decided that I really wanted to go into social work. Up to my attachment with prisons, I was still pretty undecided and was being my usual indecisive self with regards to whether I really wanted to join the profession. After Prisons, I consolidated what I wanted out of Social Work and what I could contribute and I started my year 3 at NUS for the first time being sure about the major I had chosen 3 semesters ago. With my new-found interest in Social work, plus the fact that my friends and I were in the you-join-i-join mood, I joined SSWS without much thought. I had absolutely no idea of what I could do or how I could contribute. Asking me to pioneer new stuff or to head projects was definitely out of my league but I figured that the society could probably use more manpower in whatever they were to planning to do and I could do that.
At internal elections, I was amazed at the preparation a couple of them had done for the internal elections as they whizzed out notebooks filled with throughly thought through ideas.I saw people who had already established a certain level of success, and people who seemed like they really knew what they were doing. It was the first time that I actually felt that we could go somewhere with this little society of ours. I remember telling the P some time later that he had an idiot-member sitting on his ex-co who doesn't have the ability to contribute any worthy sort of ideas/initiatives/values. But this member trusted that they knew what they were doing and where they were going and was willing to give her best if they could just tell her what to do because she had no idea how to go about achieving all that the society was set to achieve. I had wanted to set the expectations straight and when you know that you can't do a better job than the person who's already up there, I guess it's time to find some other way to contribute. Unambitious as it seems, that was the way I felt I could best contribute to the society.
Things have changed since then, and I don't particularly like the outcome of things. I feel as though we've lost the battle, or maybe we had already lost it last semester when we ended the sem with practically nothing checked on our to-do list. I feel as thou I'm at the burial of the dreams we had all set at the internal elections. How could we have lost when we had such a powerful combination of human resources? One had concrete plans and wasn't willing to let the society stay stagnant, one had a track record of proven success which translates to a wealth of experience to tap on, one had the people-orientedness to soothe feelings, or to motivate people (if used more appropriately), one was a passionate freshie who went all out, another who picked up fast and so on so forth..
If SSWS were to remain at it's current state, I wonder from an economic perspective is SSWS still worth maintaining? Does the cost incurred in having a society outweigh the benefits of having one? We incur costs like electricity bills for the use of the room, stationary costs, costs of programs which has nearly no direct benefit on the members,language classes being the exception and not to mention costs in terms of the effort that is put in to plan and implement. And it seems that social work students are capable of creating programs to enhance their own benefit without the help of the society as seen from the whole captain's ball issue. Econs would tell us that if the social cost you're incurring is more that the social benefit you get from a good/service, it's time to cut down, which makes SSWS look very redundant. This looks like a gross misallocation of resources as precious resources are being spent on the SSWS whereby greater benefits could have been garnered if the resources were used somewhere else. Do the social work students really see SSWS as a benefit? or do social workers even see SASW as a benefit to begin with? we keep allocating resources to fund societies such as ssws and sasw, but are we responding to the true demand of social workers cum social work students? It's like you're really hungry and you want lunch but I keep giving books which isn't exactly what is on your mind now. Even if you forced yourself to accept books from me, you wouldn't get as much benefit as compared to if I gave you lunch instead. I suffer because no one wants to buy my books, and you suffer because you don't get your lunch. We are in a lose-lose situation because both our benefits are not maximized. Our benefits or marginal utility could have been maximized if I offered lunch and you get your lunch that you want instead of books. I am happy because my lunch is selling, you're happy because your tummy is filled.
When the government decides to fund merit goods such as education because he thinks that education is beneficial for us, he makes sure that it's fully utilized and that people have little excuse not to use it seeing that education is the main route to success in Singapore. But sadly so, this isn't the case for SASW or SSWS.
People don't see the benefit of the good hence do not demand it, yet produces are still supplying it. We're lucky to be even surviving because we do not have to face the repercussions of not having allocative efficiency because some sponsor up there is pumping in what ever 'revenue' we're losing in order to help us support at least our fixed cost which enables us to function above our shut-down point. We don't function based on profits alone, we would have died. Our 'revenue' isn't calculated based on monetary profits alone, but includes social benefit. Taking monetary profit + social benefit as our 'revenue', are we producing enough 'revenue' for the organization to survive at a level above the shut down point? If we are not, we are operating at a loss. Because resources are scarce, we operating at a loss means that someone else is bearing the brunt of it all because the resources could have been put to better use somewhere else. I have no idea where SSWS or SASW gets their funds from , but the funder could have channeled his funds to where it would be fully utilized.
I have no qualms that D&D, FOC etc are bringing benefits to students, but back to my question, is all that cost we are putting into supporting a society for social work students worth the amount of benefits we reap from events such as D&D or even FOC? If we still want to move on with the idea of having societies, how do we make the society become a merit good that is recognized as a merit good not only by the 'government' but by the public as well?
while shutting down may seem to be a simple way of escape, why are we still holding on to something that is not even wanted and trying to beautify it to make it wanted even thou there's not much benefit?
who says econs isn't fun right? HAHAX
I love social work, and I'm damn right sure that it's where i'll go upon graduation. But I'm damn right upset at the fact that people with the brains and ability are leaving the field and the fact that even from many years ago 50% of our graduates choose not to enter the field. I'm upset that a social work education only could make someone so disappointed with it that I wonder what else is left to talk about social work as a career? I'm upset that just as I start to open my eyes to what social work really is, I see the negative bits and pieces of everything. I'm upset at the sense of helplessness I feel when even those who know how to do it don't see the point in it anymore. I want my honors and I'm going to fight to get it, because I still believe in social work. I don't regret all the C+s and B-s I got for my NUS modules because I learnt a lesson from each and every one of them. Making up is always hard, but i'll get through it. =D
PS. should i change my blog skin????
i love sushi!
