Get a degree.
A bachelor's degree in social work (BSW) or a related field like sociology is a minimum requirement for most social work jobs. According to the Princeton Review, there are 777 colleges in the United States that offer undergraduate degrees in social work. For a list of schools accredited by the Council on Social Work Education, log onto the Council's website at www.cswe.org.

If you want to be competitive in the field, NASW and the U.S. Department of Labor recommend you earn a master's degree (MSW). If you are ambitious and want to focus more on researching and teaching at a university level, a doctorate (DSW) or Ph.D. in social work is usually required.

Rollins cautions any interested "Savvy Miss" to do her homework on universities before applying to them. She ended up at a university whose curriculum didn't match her goals.

"I was totally frustrated by my grad school experience because it was geared toward fast-tracking students into their own private practices, which was not at all what I wanted to do," says Rollins.

Get a state license.
According the Department of Labor, most states require 3,000 hours of supervised clinical experience for state licensure of clinical social workers. That may sound like quite a time commitment, but Rollins says it is worth the effort. 

"You can bump up against the ceiling pretty fast without a master's degree and state licensure, because if you're not licensed yourself, you have to work for someone who is for most positions," says Rollins.

Do internships.
While in undergraduate or graduate programs, students are required to complete a certain amount of fieldwork depending on the university. For Hiramoto, undergraduate fieldwork meant interning with a social services department close to her school. While in graduate school at the University of California at Berkeley, Hiramoto worked at a state congressman's office, where she first learned how to write government bills that promoted social change.