Personal Narrative: My Social Work Classes

Lani: I was helping for someone’s project for COMM 245; I was in the video lab, in the studio. I was on campus and decided to contact everyone I knew who comes to the school. I remember I sent out a snap saying guys I think there is a shooting, be careful and then I started sending out individual texts to people making sure they were okay, like hey are you good? Stay out of an area.

My body cried like a newborn babe, afraid in an unfamiliar place. Immediately, my fresh eyes were greeted by waves of black hair, friendly smiles, and the Japanese language. I had arrived in Japan. I did not know the language or the customs, but I dove right into the dark pool. I was determined not to let the unknown drown me.

“Oh please! You guys say that you want to move into this new house because it looks great. The real reason is because the commute to my therapist is much faster. I’m fine mom and dad! I don’t need antidepressants nor do I need a therapist.

To tell the truth, I leaned more toward social work from the get-go, but telling my family that I wanted to be a Social Worker, they said “No Lilli, you don’t want to take people’s kids away.” And I would say “Yes, I know that. I want to do psychotherapy, and I would have to go to graduate school.” And their reply was something along the lines of just get a four-year degree in something that made a lot of money, so I didn’t have to worry about any of that. It was very difficult for me, so I convinced myself that I wanted to go the psychology route, and that was that.

When I graduated from Troy University with my Associate of Arts, I continued to further my education. Upon entering at a Bachelors level, my advisor informed me about the Social Work and the Psychology program. I didn’t know which program to choose. I chose the Psychology Program. I was thinking on the lines of becoming a counselor one day.

At the beginning of this summer I reluctantly attended a leadership seminar that was held at my school. What high school student wants to come to school, in full uniform, during break to hear about leadership? Certainly not me. As a senior, my teachers urged me, with incredible persistence, to attend. I eventually caved and went.

On the very first day of school, I began to plan my Senior Project. I wanted to piece together a project that would mean something to me and be beneficial to others. I came up with the idea of collecting donations for homeless people and delivering them to shelters. A close family member of mine was homeless for two years, and because of this, I hold a special place in my heart for homeless people.

My capstone activities will primarily focus on learning how to properly read, write, and speak Hmong. I will also be adding history courses with topics related to the Hmong because I personally feel that I do not know enough about my roots and history. I know that in order to be successful in who I want to be or what I want to be, I need to start with myself. As a young child, I had always had the desire to learn how to read and write in my native language.

Social work is a profession that dedicates its efforts to ensure the well-being of individuals and the well-being of the society as a whole. The primary mission of social workers is to meet the fundamental needs of every person, especially the ones with special needs such as those who are oppressed, vulnerable and the people living in poverty. As a social worker, I intend to use these core values such as service, integrity, and dignity as guidelines to my work to make a difference in the lives of as many needy people as I can. My main goal will be to offer services to needy people to help them solve and overcome social problems that they encounter each day in their lives.

It was a cold winter night and it was just mama sister and I. And mama was talking to us about all our hopes and dreams. Mama looked at sister and I and said “what do you want to be when you get older”. Sister looked at me I looked at her and we pondered this question.

I knew I wanted to help people, but the courses that stood in my way were definitely frightening. After consulting the course catalog at Grand View, I found our fairly new Bachelor of Social Work program. I thought like most of the public, naively thinking social workers just took away peoples’ children when there was a bad situation. With only days

First in 2013 I have live with my sister and brother and mom and dad until my mom was in trouble and my dad was in jail and my grandmother said she will take my brother and sister in with her. Then I went to stay with my mom and dad but I couldn 't because my mom and dad were sick is I had to live my with grandmother. Then I live with my grandmother and she could really take care of us

About a year ago, I began doing my internship at the Juvenile Services Department. Thinking back over my field experience, it was truly not what I was expecting the field of social work to be. When I first started as a social work intern, I was both excited and terrified. I needed to learn a great deal off new information and procedures while also adjusting to a new environment. As an intern at the Juvenile Services Department, I had a caseload of youth that were participating in the program.

This year I tutored middle school students. I contributed by always managing to make it whenever I didn’t work and by helping students do their best. My goals last semester was for us to communicate better, we had trouble communicating with the teacher. As a group we didn’t really feel acquainted to her and it was hard for us to communicate.

I did some research to change my major to something involving what I did at the YOC. I found out about social work. I hadn’t really understood what social work/human service workers did until I started this research. I had been in counseling briefly as a teen. Being an angsty teen is hard; it also made it harder to learn I had an anxiety disorder.