[promise94]

PROMISE AYODU
HUS 1203 HUMAN SERVICE SEMINAR
PROF. ABDUR- RAHMAN

PROFESSIONAL ESSAY
My childhood was pretty amazing and memorable. I was born in Nigeria, a country located in the western part of Africa, in Edo state to be precise in a city called Igarra. I pretty much grew up there because I didn’t move to the United States till I was 16 years old. Growing up in Nigeria taught me so much because my mom left to come to the United States when I was 6 years old and my dad wasn’t really around. My mom always kept in touch and tried her best to give me a comfortable life back in Nigeria even though she couldn’t be there and that hurt her every day. When I turned 16, I was finally granted a Visa to come to United States to be with my mom. My first few years in high school were pretty challenging because it was a new and different environment for me. I had to learn at a different speed and get more used to things I wasn’t so used to back in Nigeria. Few years later, I graduated from Mount Vernon high school in Westchester. I got accepted into Borough Of Manhattan Community College right after. At BMCC, I started off wanting to be a nursing student but then I realized that wasn’t what I wanted to do. I did my research on majors that I was more interested in and Human Services was the main major one on the list. I decided I’ll rather be a counselor than a nurse for a lot of various reasons.
Human services was never my first choice but as time went by I was able to understand more about it and it has caught my interest more than any other major that I would have considered in the past. I like the fact that it’s a broad major which gives you a lot of options of career jobs to choose from. I came into this field not being sure of what I was really going to end up doing or what group of people I’ll like to work with in future. As time went by, I came to a conclusion that being a counselor will be perfect for me. To be more precise, I’ll like to be a marriage and family counselor. This thought crossed my mind because in my group of friends, even though most of them are a lot older than me, I’m the one everyone comes to for advice. I’m not sure why but I get to listen to what every one of them is going through and help in giving them whatever advice I can that’ll help the situation. I decided to try doing this professionally because there are a lot of people out there with different stories, different family issues, different conflicts who have no idea on how to go about these problems. I want to be able to help by giving people hope and letting them know that these issues can be addressed and maybe managed if not permanently fixed. I’ve also realized that the divorce rate in the United States increase year by year but with good counseling that can change. I want to be part of that change to help couples see that their marital issues can be resolved.
I believe that I have a lot to learn as an individual and as a human service professional that’s why I’m dedicated to learning how to be a good counselor. I also believe that I have what it takes because being brought up in a different background has helped me see things in a different way. I am more focused, I love to deal with people, I am patient enough to listen to people’s stories and life experiences, I have good communication skills and I hope to make a good first impression with my clients so they feel comfortable enough to open up to me and trust me enough to keep working with me. I haven’t worked in a Human Service field so I might not know entirely everything just yet but that’s why I’m in college, to learn and educate myself more on everything I’m supposed to know and through my internships I can gain the experience that I need to work in the field as a professional.
Like I said earlier, I want to be a marriage and family counselor. This involves working with couples and families as a whole. I would like to work with couples who have conflicts and other issues contributing to their relationship. I want to help them communicate better with each other, express how they are feeling and teach them coping skills that’ll help them remember why they got married in the first place.
Family counseling might be a bit challenging for me because it involves working with every family member including children. Working with children has always been something I tried to avoid in the past because I always felt like I had no experience on how to deal with children. I only have one younger sibling and I met him when he was 6 years old because we both lived in two different countries. I missed out on the childhood memories of when he was born till he was 6 years old. At the time, we were complete strangers to each other, we barely spoke because we didn’t grow up together. I was not able to understand or relate with him, I just always thought he was too hyperactive because he was always loud and brake things around the house. That was what made me conclude that I would not work with children in whatever career I chose in future. Being in this field has made me understand that working with children might not be such a bad idea because so far I’ve learned about reasons why children behave the way they do and I’ve also learned different strategies that could be used to work with them without causing a distance between me as their counselor and them as my client.
As a human service professional, I believe I’m on the right path and I hope to learn more skills that’ll help me progress in the field while working with couples and family including children. When I obtain my bachelor degree from New York City College Of Technology (CITYTECH), I want to continue with my masters in Human service Administration. I don’t know where I might be 10 years from now but I hope I succeed in this field and make a great career out of it. I hope to help change people’s Lives and give them hope that things can be better. And I hope that what I’ve learned from this field would help me with my own children and relationship with my husband in the future.
Learning is a process, we never stop learning till the day we die. I’m going to keep educating myself because I believe there’s so much more to learn not only in the human service field but also in our daily lives. I hope to achieve every goal I’ve set for myself to achieve in this field.

• This topic was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by promise94.