Why Social Work?

When I was little I remember wanting to be a scientist... at our church for the Harvest fair (that thing churches do instead of trick or treat) mom would dress me in some of her of real retro looking nursing scrubs, throw some pens and nerd pad in the pocket get some goggles for me and off we went to bob for apples and find things in hay and play that game where you fish for candy... ANYWAY... A little later in life I thought maybe to be a doctor would be the best choice, I think I actually even said a surgeon was the kind of doctor I wanted to be... then I reached my junior high years, where I realized that in order to be a doctor I had to know....math and science!!!! NEVER! In my family there is this curse... see none of us are good at Math... I'm so bad that I took Algebra 1 twice... I was in Algebra 1 for 3 semesters!!!! I couldn't even tell you what went on in Geometry... and in Algebra 2 I spent the class period trying to find a seat that I enjoyed better... I also never really did homework because I didnt want to spend 3 hours of my life doing homework I was going to get all the answers wrong for anyway! BUT I passed the classes. I loved the TAKS math test so much I decided to take 3 times...
SO point of the story... Doctoring clearly was not for me.
While I tried to figure out what I wanted to be when I grow up... so many options went through my head but then I knew I had it figured out...

I was either going to be a doctor on ER the show. I love acting, I wanted to be a doctor but since this would be on tv I wouldnt have to know math or science because I could be a fake doctor like Maura Tierney(who I love by the way). OR I was going to be a Rockstar.... It was a tough decision I had to make. UNTIL...

I realized that I need to pick something that was going to be more realistic and ideal. SO now I was back to square one. What was I going to be when I grew up?!

I was quickly running out of time... All my friends were already accepted to colleges and had already picked professions and life paths and I still couldnt decide...
One morning I woke up and finally made a decision

Social Work, thats what I was picking. So I started researching and my decision was quickly affirmed when I found out that I was not going to need a lot of math. I told myself this was the perfect thing for me.

So I am now studying Social Work.
BUT let me tell you why this has proven to be a difficult thing even without the math!

- So I only needed one math credit BUT I have to have biology, chemistry and Neuroscience... Neuroscience! That makes my head hurt just to say it!

- The Social Work textbooks cannot be carried all at the same time because that would cause a back strain... they are heavy and huge!

- Apparently you really have to know your feelings and be ready to talk about them to other people. I was told today that I needed to become more aware of feelings and how to utilize empathic skills, because I was not empathic enough...That hurt my feelings real bad...all 2 of them. I am way better at the elaboration skills, which where I can ask you questions and have you tell me your story.

-Social Workers have to be comfortable working with anyone... this is hard for me... little kids drive me crazy and nursing homes scare me because the people there sometimes smell and are really scary...BUT I love youth kids! LOVE anyway so this is something I have to work on.

- I have never really been a huge fan of group activities because I always get put into a group that people dont pull their weight in... Social work classes LOVE group projects and activities and sharing feelings with each other

-So I have heard many comments made by people about social work majors...
people say it is the easy major but my favorite is when they assume that we all are going to work with CPS or Poverty... I am not planning on either...I mean yes we study it and yes social workers do this but not all of us!

- We have our own statistics class and our own research class... stats was ok but research is not fun. Maybe I can find a person to work with who will love research and decide to handle all that for me. LOL

- I feel like we probably write more papers than other majors... Sometimes I have 2 papers due on the same day! It is crazy!

- We use APA format... this is not a format they teach in high school... and easybib makes you pay for APA format so it is entirely up to us because we are poor and dont want to pay easy bib.

- We volunteer alot.

Overall though I made the right decision in choosing social work. It covers a variety of areas, so I dont feel tied down to one particular job the rest of my life. We have fun in our classes. The profs are super cool and smart. We are like a cute little social work family.