My Beginning, Middle, and Future

I was born and raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. I went to Catholic elementary school and middle school for nine years. When I graduated from middle school, I decided to go to a public high school instead of a Catholic high school. I recently graduated from LaGuardia Community College with an Associate’s Degree in Math and Science. I now attend New York City of Technology and my major is currently Human Services. With hard work and determination I will be completed with my Bachelors Degree within a year from now. I feel as if my life is an endless journey, on a highway that extends infinitely into the unknown and unexplored terrain.

I have decided to become a HUS worker besides wanting to help others because I want a career that is very board in its scope. Human service deals with a whole spectrum of population with multiple complex issues to contend with. If I feel like switching from one population to another I have that opportunity. For example, I work with children now if I don’t feel like working with this specfic population for the rest of my career I have that flexibility where I can change to a substance abuse population. My mother influenced me to go into this profession because when I was growing up she saw that I was always ready and eager to help someone out especially the elderly. When I was younger and she told me I would become a social worker I thought she was wrong. I always thought I was going to become a physical therapist. When I started at LaGuardia Community College I was taking classes for physical therapy I disliked them so much. I remember complaining to my mother and she was the one who persuaded me to switch my major. I was so glad she convinced me to change my major as soon as I started taking my human services classes I was so interested and enthusiastic. What intrigued me most about the profession is it focuses on assessment, intervention, advocacy and empowerment to restore the level of functions for the client and their families.

I have a lot of personal and professional strengths that will enhance my effectiveness as a human service worker chief among my personal strengths is patience. To me to become a social worker one must have patience not every client will be happy to discuss their problems with a social worker. Having patience will allow me to stay calm in situations where the client is not being approachable..

I define myself as a hard worker, intelligent, easy going, motivated,trust-worthy, patient, respectful, and non-judgmental. My culture and family has a big influence on my personality. Knowing and seeing all my family works hard to achieve their goals makes me motivated to achieve mine. My family gives me a positive view and encourages me to always look at a glass half empty as half full.

I would like to work with is substance-abuse population because it is considered as one of the most challenging areas in social work. I love challenges, requiring patience, compassion, and a keen desire to help others who in crisis.  I think I would learn from working with this population on how they set their priorities. The unique qualities, challenges, and strengths to serve population is not getting burnt-out, but to stay positive and focused on client specific issues, understanding their needs, controlling personal emotions of anger and frustration. The skills I need to learn to be ready to professionally serve this population include active listening, social perceptiveness, critical thinking, in addition to increasing my knowledge on evidence based practice.

I envision my career path from the time of graduation to ten years is to work for a substance-abuse facility for three years, then travel aboard gaining insight from different countries for the next five years. For the rest of my career I would like to go back to my country and build a substance-abuse clinic for all ages. I would like to give back this facility free of charge.

In conclusion, I think becoming a human service worker is a great career. It allows you to empower people of all different ages. I can’t
wait to start my career in social work.

This career is not about the money, it’s about EMPOWERMENT.