Author: Johana (Page 6 of 6)

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” 

Mahatma Gandhi

This unique phrase has stuck with me throughout my college experience, especially as a human service major. When I graduated high school, I didn’t know what my life would be or look like. I always had a passion and love for children. I use to help out my mother when she would babysit, and I would also take care of my younger sister, cousins, and even family friends. The ability to care for and love children were always something that stuck with me because I felt very passionate about it. I now work and assist at a daycare with children from infant to two years old. Choosing human services as my major felt right being that I have the experience of working with children and the characteristics of a human services professional. Characteristics such as being a good listener, empathetic, compassionate, and having the desire to help others. 

When I began my college experience in City Tech, I was assigned a mentor to help assist with anything educational and even personal information. She was the one that told me about this phrase by Gandhi. My mentor was studying in the same field, human services, as for me and was very passionate about her goals. She was the reason I didn’t want to give up when I felt discouraged about school. She guided me through every course I took, gave me advice, proofread my assignments, and helped with any service I needed like contact information of professors, links to websites for free textbooks, etc. Seeing her do this for not only me but other newbies in the human services department and also doing her work and personal life, made me realize how much someone can care about another individual. And I believe that’s what a human services professional is all about. 

Having the ability to care and assist for others and putting others before yourself when in need is what I look forward to doing in my career. As a future social worker or child specialist, it will be my duty to serve those in need. I believe it’ll be something I’ll be good at being that I have most characteristics of a helper and human service professional. In my friendships and relationships, I am always genuine, I’m always the one people come to for advice, and being kind and respectful is important in this field. Furthermore, working with children especially has always been something I find myself enjoying and naturally achieving. 

The human services community is all about human dignity. It’s about helping people find stability and providing basic needs like counseling, food, shelter, treatments for substance abuse, etc. It is about helping others reach their goals, encouraging self-sufficiency, and enabling happiness in their lives, not only their lives but ours also. Gandhi’s quote means putting the needs of others before your own will bring you closer to appreciating yourself. When I work with children or even help out other individuals, it brings me a sense of peace and purity knowing that I’ve made a change in someone else’s life.

Day One HW:
After reading and watching both the video and article, I found it interesting that a person’s name and where they’re from has more meaning than we think. In the video, Mohamed Hassan explained his name and how other people always misjudged him for being white since he has blue eyes and the complexion of his skin. He felt joy when being mistaken as a white man but when asked for his name it was like he felt disappointment. After learning his name and the importance of it including his background and religion, he now appreciates who he is and his name and pronounces his name the way his mother calls him. In the article, Hanif Willis Abdurraqib explains how difficult it is to balance out American life and Arabic life as a teen here in America. He used Zayn Malik, the pop star from One Direction as a role model. Hanif relates to Zayn in terms of having two different realities. I believe it is difficult to balance out the world you live in and the world that’s in your home. I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York but both my parents are from Honduras. I can relate to Hanif and Mohamed in a way because growing up I always found it annoying when people did not know how to pronounce my name correctly when they would see how it’s spelled. My name is Johana, not with two N’s but with one and with an H. I usually get called “Jo-Hannah” but my name is pronounced, “Jo-Ana.” I also hated the way people thought my name was spelled. There was even a time when a teacher told me my name is supposed to be spelled “Johanna.” After listening to a podcast about our names being our identity, I learned that it is okay to correct others when pronouncing your name wrong and even spelling it wrong. Your name belongs to you and you have the right to correct others. I felt like that was truly important.

DAY TWO HW:
1. In his article, Mike Bunn writes “You are already an author.” He is talking about me and I think he means when writing I have the power to write whatever I want and I can choose the words I want in a sentence, so therefore I’m considered the author. The way I write and my choice of words is in my hands so that’s authorship. One of the things I already write is journaling and there I get to talk about my feelings, my decisions, my life, my goals, my family, etc. I have control of what to write so I’m considered an author. This existing expertise can help me now in college reading and writing because like Bunn said “Reading in a particular way could also make me a better writer.” Understanding what I’m reading is important because that way I develop my questions and conclusions and like Bunn said I can understand what the author meant when writing. If someone else read my journal I would want them to be able to understand what I wrote and want my audience to feel my emotions.
2. In Bunn’s article, I realized that he used headings when transitioning to other aspects of his writing. Furthermore, he had sections like “What does it mean to read like a writer?” “How is RLW different from “normal” writing?” “Why learn to read like a writer?” etc. I would like to do this in my writing because I feel like it’s very neat and in order so that’ll also help my audience get a gist and better understanding of what I’m trying to say.