In case you haven't heard

I passed my LMSW exam earlier today! And it was NO JOKE!!!!

I thought it was super hard and at MANY points, found myself just guessing on answers.

I think this was probably a combination of not focusing on some (or really what felt like A LOT) of the material in my studying, to how the questions themselves were worded.

I must've guessed correctly frequently enough because I surpassed the score required to not fail the exam!

I saw some other people on their way out who weren't so lucky :(.

There were a variety of exams going on in my center though. Before the test started, I was chatting with a nurse who was there for her second time hoping to pass.

Feelings-wise, I was super anxious and didn't sleep barely a wink last night and my stomach too was a mess. It was hard to even focus at times on the 170 questions that kept coming at me. I was so restless in my seat and just wanted to stretch and walk around.......

At one point, I even needed to get up to take a break because I've been struggling with a cold, which probably along with my nerves, lead to a massive coughing fit that I'm sure was disrupting some of the people around me.

It was probably a good thing in retrospect, but my timer also did not appear to be working either at my computer station, so I kept plugging along and ended up finishing in a little over 2 hours (you have 4 hours to take the exam).

If you are considering taking the exam in the near future, my advice would be to study your ass off for it. And then study some more. And then keep studying............do not let ANYONE make you think it's just some cake thing you need to do to be able to call yourself a social worker. It has now officially been my experience that you cannot go in blind (or just focus on your work knowledge) and think you will pass. Please believe this when people tell you. I'm not telling you this to scare you. If anything, I am telling you so that you can be prepared. And it also IS overall a scary exam that you SHOULD take seriously.

You really must have a great foundation of everything to pass this test. I also learned that in addition to having a strong knowledge base of all things social work (and somewhat beyond), you need to know the nonsense.

ESPECIALLY all of that boring stuff that we probably rarely, if ever, use in real life practice. Or if we do, we aren't thinking about what it's actually called ;).

Have you recently taken your licensing exam and passed? What did you think of it?

P.S. To the first person who is thinking of asking about it, I have NO plans to take the LCSW anytime soon. IF EVER. 10 years post-Master's was a huge accomplishment in itself for me LOL.