Brown School Student Experiences

The breadth and depth of experiences that our students have during their time at the Brown School are unparalleled. Read firsthand from some of our students.

Brown School Specialization: Learn More About Older Adults and Aging Societies

​Byline: Nancy Morrow-Howell  Today we are delighted to highlight the Brown School’s work with older adults and aging societies, and we’d like to share a little bit about our new specialization! We believe that all social work and public health students would be well served by learning about older adults and aging society, given current longevity and demographic trends. The Older Adults and Aging Societies specialization gives students across all the concentrations tools to serve clients, families and communities across the longer life course. The specialization provides students with expertise in working with older adults, their families and the service delivery systems for aging societies. It also prepares students to develop policy and program strategies to address the challenges and opportunities...

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Exploring Research Opportunities at the Brown School

​Many graduate students choose to engage in research during their time at the Brown School. I knew I was interested in securing a part-time research job during my own application process, even though I wasn’t certain if I would pursue research as a career. I figured that a research role would allow me to deepen my knowledge in my field of interest beyond coursework and prepare me to confront the field’s major challenges throughout micro, mezzo and macro practice. So, when I didn’t get accepted for an exciting fellowship I applied to with Dr. Lindsay Stark, I was a little disappointed. Her work around gender norms, violence prevention, and displaced populations was a major reason I was interested in attending...

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Finding Practica in Unlikely Places

​Growing up in Charleston, South Carolina taught me that there is history all around us — sometimes it just means you have to be creative in the ways that you look for it. There is history in the big, sprawling oak tree in the middle of a park. There is history in the indentations in the concrete sidewalks from children’s handprints. There is history in the stucco-covered brick buildings that line the streets of my hometown. Living in Charleston also taught me that learning history, at its core, is not about memorizing important dates, but rather seeking out the stories of other people, and connecting those stories to the formation of the world we live in today. As I got older,...

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Getting Outside in St. Louis

​I like to think of a semester as represented by a graph with two peaks —I had to use the internet to figure out that this phenomenon does, in fact, have a name, and it is recognized as a “bimodal graph.” The first peak represents the initial first few weeks of classes—the first assignments, papers, group discussions. It could even mean engaging in a social work practice lab session where you realize, for the first time, that it’s possible to simultaneously feel that you have no idea what you are doing, yet that you somehow can do new things. The second peak hits deeper in the semester, when professors gently remind us that we are full-fledged graduate students, or when the first...

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Who is the Typical Brown School Student?

​Choosing the right graduate program is about a lot of things – scholarships and funding, research opportunities, location, academic expectation, etc. You want to know what your life will look like over the next two years. For me, one of the most important parts of my day-to-day life is the people I’m surrounded by. In grad school, that’s even more important because we learn so much from each other in classroom discussions and casual lunch chats. With that in mind, I wanted to answer a question we get fairly often: Who is the typical Brown School Student?  Diversity in Every Area  Brown School students represent pretty much every demographic criteria. We’re all ages, all levels of work experience, and span broad spectrums...

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Meet the Brown School Student Ambassadors

​Greetings from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. We are your Student Ambassador team, and we are here to answer any questions you might have about the application process, the curriculum or life at the Brown School. Read a little about us below.  (Bios below follow photo, from left to right) If you want to schedule a time to chat directly with a student ambassador, please contact brownadmissions@wustl.edu. We look forward to helping guide you through the graduate school selection and admissions process!  PEIYUAN ZHANG (SHE/HERS) Program: MSW Concentration/Specialization: Health/Research Hometown: Beijing, China About: “My research area of interest is palliative care education, health communication strategies and health policy for rare disease populations. My past direct practice was mainly about providing emotional, informational support...

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