USC School of Social Work

The University of Southern California (USC) offers one of the most flexible and highly rated Social Work programs in the country. One of USC’s true strengths is the online MSW program which offers an excellent opportunity to deepen your knowledge of Social Work and is accessible from anywhere in the country. With some of the most advanced MSW degree concentrations in the country, USC offers its students the chance to take their education in the direction they need to further their career goals.

Your diploma from USC will appear exactly the same as the physical campus. Also just like the physical campus, the MSW program is accredited by both the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) and the Western Association of Colleges and Schools (WSAC). This all combines to make the USC MSW online program among the finest in the country.

One of the many ways the MSW@USC program helps to give its graduates a professional boost is through fostering professional contacts in one’s own community through its field internship program. Internships are critical components for licensure in many states and are also seen as extremely attractive to employers in a variety of Social Work agencies. Combining the key pre-requisite of an internship with the opportunity to meet professional Social Workers in your area gives you chance to increase your professional network and get your career off to an excellent start and really makes the MSW program stand out among its online peers.


The MSW through USC program offers a variety of degree concentrations and sub-concentrations to ensure you have the appropriate skill-set to match your career goals. They offer degree concentrations in the following areas: Community Organization, Planning and Administration (COPA), Families and Children, Health, Mental Health and Social Work and Business in a Global Society. Each of these degree concentrations offers a different career track and specialization that fills almost every niche in the Social Work sphere. There are also a number of sub-concentrations to add extra expertise and niche skill-sets to help flesh out your degree and prepare you for life in the professional world right out of college.

For those who have an interest in community building or administration in a Social Work organization, the COPA degree concentration will give you the tools you need to flourish. Training that emphasizes building networks of trust with stakeholders and an understanding of what communities need to improve local human services. Having an understanding of demographics, GIS information and the unique needs of communities can give you the big picture outlook combined with actionable details needed to help facilitate growth and change in a community.
For those who have interest in working in Child Welfare or similar branches of Social Work, the Families and Children degree concentration can help to prepare you for this extremely demanding field. Understanding how to maintain the delicate balance between ensuring child safety and working to keep families together is one of the many skills that will be taught as part of this degree concentration at the USC School of Social Work.

As demographics shift and the Baby Boom generation retire and age, society will have a greater demand for Medical Social Workers. The USC School of Social Work degree concentration in Health will help you to understand these changing societal dynamics and the application of Social Work in the Medical field and how Social Work and Health are interlinked.

For those who are working towards licensure and Mental Health counseling, the MSW@USC program degree concentration in Mental Health is an ideal fit. Learning the variations in human cognition, psychological makeup and co-occurring disorders are just some of the many subjects on the human psyche that you will learn about in-depth at the USC School of Social Work Mental Health concentration. You will also learn how to set up appropriate interventions and long-term care plans for your patients to help them on their journey of healing.
The USC School of Social Work is one of the few MSW programs in the country that is designed to help give you a skillset that is specific to working within large organizations to help meet organizational objectives through counseling of the workforce. This degree concentration is known as the Social Work and Business in a Global Society. This unique degree concentration helps to develop a framework so the Social Worker understands the way organizational structures, policies and politics can influence worker mental health. From stress reduction, to restructuring and work place relations, this degree concentration tackles the full spectrum of organizational challenges and solutions that are a daily part of the 21st century workplace.

The Military Social Work and Veterans Services sub-concentration will give you the training you need to serve the unique needs of our veterans and active military. The MSW@USC program is one of the few in the country to give you this emphasis on support work for current and former military. As many of our troops return home and seek to reintegrate into society they will have need of Social Workers who understand the unique challenges faced by veterans returning from over-seas.

The USC School of Social Work offers a multitude of degree concentrations that help train the next generation of Social Worker to have a top-shelf academic background that gives you the training required to have an effective and rewarding career in Social Work.