Personal Statement: A Career As A Social Worker

My intended major is Sociology. Once I earn my degree I intend to find a career in either social work or teaching. In choosing social work my focus will be low income families and programs that decrease social inequality. As a child I yearned for the ability to help people, to change someone’s life for the better and give them back the strength and hope they have lost through life’s battles. I gained this eagerness to provide assistance when my parents brought me to their homeland of Guatemala. Guatemala is a very poor country and I saw the despair and hopelessness of many while others still strived every day to elevate the lives of their family amidst poverty.

I want to be a social worker because I have a passion for helping people (and what social worker doesn’t?). I discovered this when I was younger and entered college as a music education major. I changed to elementary education my sophomore year with a minor in social work. When I took my first social work class I realized that I had the ability and opportunity to do much more than just teach children. Social work sparked my self to reflect on my personal experiences and who I was and I wanted to do more than just teach.

I can see myself having social working as a career for the rest of my life because I like helping people face problems that they can’t face on their own. I love working with children, families, and being able to experience working with others and helping them face obstacles that their facing in their life. One of many reasons I would also enjoy social working as a career would be helping these people overcome obstacles they thought they’d never overcome. While growing up and facing tough situations in life, I always had family and friends there for me which is why I would love to help others and be there for them because it’s a great feeling knowing that you have people there wanting to listen to you and help you through problems.

I can say that being a social worker was never in my plans. I started from Liberal Arts, because I wasn’t decided on my career choice. I took almost all courses, when I got an advice from one of my friends to try Health Information Technology. I gave it a chance and I didn’t realize how time flied by and I graduated. My dream always was to work with children. When I graduated and took my internship, that was the time, when I understood that I made the wrong choice. I needed to search for another career, because I understood, that it would not be what I meant. My father is physical therapist and he gave me and advice to think and to do some research about Social Worker. This time, I did the most research that I could, in order to not repeat my mistake again. I instantly knew, that this what I needed. All over the world, there is and will always be abuse. That’s the reality of it, but now I’m studying for Social Worker here at Lehman College, because I would like to be working toward changing a child’s reality one day, I am changing my knowledge every time I come to class, and changing my life one step at a time. I believe that it all starts with me, and while I may not be able to save the whole world, I will be able to save and help at least small part of it. I currently work in the family practice as a receptionist. My best days are those when I able to help people and provide them with all the information needed. Every day is different.

There are many goals I hope to accomplish by attaining knowledge of social work. My ultimate career goal is to establish a non-profit organization in an inner city that will provide services for children during week days and weekends.

One thing that I have always been certain of when it comes to my future is that I want to inspire, help, and have a positive impact on as much people as possible. I want to fight for those that have no voice and create any necessary social change in my community. The field of social work would help me accomplish that. Social work is a broad field where I would be able to work with various populations of people throughout the community ranging from children to the elderly. I believe that by pursuing a master’s degree in social work I will have a sense of deep satisfaction knowing that I will be prepared to face any obstacle in my future as a social worker. I am aware that social work can be challenging but knowing that I will be able to advocate for others that are helpless and fight for social justice will be very rewarding. I first became interested in social work seven years ago, after my aunt and her husband decided to become foster parents, I would help my aunt take care of the children, and they were all very sweet kids that I will never forget. My aunt and her husband were given the opportunity to adopt a 5-year-old girl and shortly after were able to adopt her newborn sister. It was a very joyous day for our family when the adoption was finalized. During that time I met their social worker, she was a very kind and knowledgeable woman that inspired me to pursue a career in social work. I admired how passionate she was about her job and how much she enjoyed making an

Professionally I was tasked with putting the care plans for various individuals into action by helping the people cultivate life skills such as investing money and budgeting skills, assisting them in the development of high levels of independence while aiming at improving their social and communication skills. In one way or another, helping these people led me to develop a great passion for working as a social worker. On a daily basis, I provided steady and continuous emotional support so that the individuals can lead a less stressful life. Besides that, I learned how to communicate well with clients on various sensitive issues that affected them emotionally in the most appropriate and understanding manner. Thus, this job significantly improved my patience, communication skills and my imitative in approaching people I meet in my everyday life. I became more aware of my personal beliefs

For a majority of my life, I wanted to be a pediatrician when I grew up. I had wanted to be a pediatrician due to my passion to work with children, in addition to enhancing the lives of children. As I continued to grow up, I realized that science is not my strong suit and I would never survive medical school. I do not recall how I learned about the profession of social work, but around the eighth grade I have known that social work was the profession that I wanted to pursue. The idea of helping others is what initially struck me as compelling because I did not understand social work in it’s entirety, but I knew that I would relish a life of helping other individuals.

I was influenced to choose the field of social work was a personal one. As a child,

I cannot emphasize enough the passion I have for child welfare services, I like helping individuals, children to be exact. I cannot see myself doing anything else with my life I never wanted to do anything else in life. I have demonstrated a great deal of capacity for success in the Indiana child welfare scholars program by a number of things: one, staying commented to one major; two presenting myself as a practicing child welfare worker; three, pushing myself to always do better in my classes. Once I knew I wanted to go to college in order to achieve my dream social work was my only option. If I did anything else it would have been for the money I would not have been for the right respectable reasons.

I met some amazing Social Worker who went beyond the call of duty. As I become older my interest in social work grew more working at Wards Island as well. I started asking myself how I become a social worker. In so many words they explained that I have to do well in school and go to college. I can major in the field of social work or closely related field.

I have always wanted to be in the social work field ever since I started classes at Troy. Unfortunately, Troy in Montgomery did not offer social work classes; therefore, I chose sociology. I have enjoyed taking sociology courses, because it teaches you a lot about social inequality, social institutions, and the way people live in society. Sociology is a lot of research on a wide scale. On the contrary, social workers aide in direct assistance with individuals.

I want to a be a social worker because i want to help people, and it also interests me since the 8th grade. My responsibility of being a social worker is to help solve and cope with people and their problems in their everyday life. As well help work with families to strengthen their parenting skills for parents who drink, do drugs, and who are abusive. I can also help prevent child abuse to the kids in the home and find a home for them who are unable to live with their biological parents.

The social worker became my role model and I remember telling myself that when I grew up I wanted to be just like her. I want to reciprocate the support she provided us and be able to assist other families in need. I want to represent and assist families in crisis and be an active voice for those in need. Throughout my high school career, I did various internships and volunteer work that helped me conclude I loved working with families and children especially representing minority groups and at-risk youth. I dedicated my time to volunteering in after school programs and I helped at local food banks.

When I started thinking about my future, becoming a Social worker was never in my plans. I knew that I always wanted to help people; I just never thought I could make a career out of it. When was younger, I spent time working at a nursing home serving them dinner. During my time working there, I was able to get to know the elderly patients and began to enjoy spending time with them, and just being someone, they could talk to. I also worked at a summer camp and an after-school program, which was the first jobs that sparked my interest in wanting to work with children. After working both of these jobs, I strongly felt that I wanted to become a teacher. My academic concentration during my first three years of college was Early Childhood Education,