Graduate / SOP on Why I Want to Obtain My Master's of Social Work and Be a Social Worker [4]

This is the rough draft I have for my Statement of Purpose for my MSW program applications. It still needs a lot of fine tuning, but I am desperate for any tips and constructive criticism. My main concerns:

Is it too informal?
Should I include more about my personal experience?
Any help at all on any aspects of the essay would be much appreciated!

Want to Be a Social Worker

My SOP

I didn't always want to be a Social Worker. For most of my life, I had no idea that Social Work was even a thing that existed, much less what it was. I was lucky in that regard. Social Workers aren't known for coming into people's lives when everything is going well. They're much like superheroes in that aspect. But I have always been inclined toward helping professions. After a brief ballerina phase, my aspirations tended to switch between various medical and legal professions. It wasn't until after experiencing an assault and seeking help at a crisis center that I discovered what exactly Social Work was. The counseling and support I received there were unbelievable, and when I discovered that the counselors providing the assistance were Social Workers, I found my true calling. That year I began applying to college to begin the process of becoming a Social Worker.

The profession seems like the perfect fit for me. Growing up, I was always the one people came to for advice or just to vent. I always tried to help them come to their own conclusions instead of just telling them what the problem was and how to fix it. It wasn't until I was taking social work classes that I discovered this was a commonly used method in counseling called self-determination. College is also when I started to really discover the inequalities in society and the desire I had to help eradicate them. Growing up, I knew that inequality did exist, but it was an abstract concept to me. Racism, sexism, ableism, those were all things that I knew happened, but they were things that happened to other people, far away from where I lived. It wasn't until years later that I was able to open my eyes and realize that I had experienced some inequality in my life, and it wasn't alright and something needed to change. In high school, during my training to become a Certified Nurse's Aide, my eyes were opened even further. While working in different nursing homes, I was able to witness the way elderly people were often treated. The thing that bothered me the most was how often people- even highly educated nurses with years of experience under their belts- tended to infantilize the elderly. It irked me that these people who had lived almost full lifetimes and accomplished and experienced so much were being treated like children, and not with the integrity and dignity that they deserved.

There are many qualities that I can bring to both the Social Work profession and to my colleagues in the Master's of Social Work program. The top quality would be my passion. I never do anything halfway, putting my entire self into everything that I do, and nothing fires me up like helping people. Nothing has ever made me feel more alive than advocating for people seeking restraining orders and orders of protection at my last internship, and I will never forget the gratitude on their faces when those orders were obtained. I am also very adaptable. Between my experience as a Resident Advisor and my current job as a Residential Counselor, I have come to learn that it is very rare for anything to go as planned. Whether it is an event with more people showing up than I planned for, or a shift going really well until one of the clients has a meltdown and brings some other clients into it, I need to be prepared for absolutely anything. That trait was difficult for me at first, since I was a planner for a very long time, but now I have come to accept and embrace it. I can easily adapt when a situation changes, and think quickly about what the next step I need to do is. Another thing I have learned is how to just let things be. I was always a doer growing up, trying to find a solution for every problem. It took me some time to realize that, sometimes, there isn't a solution for something. While I am still incredibly proactive and try to come up with a solution whenever possible, I have also learned that I cannot fix everything. One of the biggest skills being a Resident Advisor taught me that I have utilized in my current job is recognition. Whenever someone makes progress, whether it is bringing a grade up from an F to a D-minus or not running away for a whole month, it is important to acknowledge the achievement and praise them for it. While my current clients may act like something isn't a big deal, a little bit of praise goes a long way for them.

I think that the most prevalent social issue facing society today is the pervasiveness of rape culture. Of course, rape and sexual assault are a huge problem, but I don't think the problem would be anywhere near as big as it is without the attitudes that justify, normalize, and condone rape. Victim blaming is the worst behavior associated with rape culture. Stories exemplifying such behaviors can easily be found in the news; the most recent popular example being the media's reactions to the Steubenville case. Not to mention the many comedians who make the news because of their use of jokes about rape and sexual assault. We live in a society that asks what the victim was wearing at the time, or if she was drinking or flirting. It can be despairing, looking at this huge issue that is so ingrained in our society, but there are so many things we can do to help.

The most important thing that can be done to help combat rape culture would be education. Young children can be taught about consent throughout their entire lives, just by incorporating personal space and boundaries into their everyday lives, and consent should be an important part of the sexual education that is already taught in schools. Education doesn't have to stop when one gets out of school, and there are many ways organizations can try to reach adults, as well.

With rape culture comes rape survivors, and their needs should be remembered and addressed. Counseling is a very important aspect to this problem. Even if the body is physically uninjured, oftentimes the soul needs healing. Trauma can impact every aspect of someone's life and follow them for many years, so it is important that opportunities for healing are made readily available to assault survivors.

Advocacy is also important when it comes to rape culture and rape survivors. Whether legal, medical, or financial, there are many ways to advocate for a sexual assault survivor. They may need someone to stand up for them while they are seeking medical attention, possibly during one of the most traumatising and vulnerable moments of their lives. Or they might need someone to help them navigate through the legal process of pressing charges and facing their assailant in court. Since trauma can impact every part of someone's life, a survivor may find themselves unable to work for some time, or with a stack of medical bills. This is when financial advocacy is important, whether contacting a landlord- with the client's permission- regarding late rent or filing for victim's compensation. Throughout the healing and aftermath, it is important for a survivor to know that they have someone willing to stick up for them and guide them through a very difficult process.

I have some experience working with survivors of sexual assault. Throughout my time at the Elizabeth Freeman Center, I encountered clients with past experience of many types of abuse. Oftentimes, physical abuse comes hand in hand with sexual violence, and all of the aspects of the abuse need to be addressed. I witnessed the counseling of some clients who had experienced sexual violence and abuse, and assisted with legal advocacy in helping clients attain restraining orders and orders of protection from their assailants in court. As a Resident Advisor, I tried to tailor my events to bringing awareness to the problem of sexual assault. One of my most successful events was when I had my internship supervisor come speak to my residents about sexual assault and the problem with rape culture, and I had quite a few residents come up to me after the event to tell me how informative and interesting they found it. In April, which is sexual assault awareness month, I tailored my bulletin boards to educate my residents about rape culture. As a member of Students Taking Action for Gender Equality at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, I performed in the Vagina Monologues and helped raise money for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. Through the clothesline project, we brought attention and awareness to those important issues. At the National Young Feminist Leadership Conference, I attended whatever workshops I could that had to do with sexual assault and rape culture. Now, working as a residential counselor in a group home for adolescents, I encounter many teenagers with a past history of sexual abuse and trauma. The majority of our clients have that past history, and I see how it affects every aspect of their lives. Addressing that trauma is often one of the most difficult things for them to do and move past, but helping them with it is one of the most rewarding aspects to me.

I am very committed to social justice and change. It is more of a passion to me than anything, and nothing makes me happier than making a change, no matter how small. Whether it's signing a petition or blogging about social justice issues or even just getting one of my friends to stop using the word "rape" in a joking context, I always feel so empowered afterward. There are so many things in society that need to be changed, it can feel overwhelming just thinking about them all, but even the smallest change can make a difference.

While I haven't had as much experience with people from diverse backgrounds as I would like, I have had some. North Adams, where my college was located, is not a very affluent town. It used to be a large mill town, but the factories all shut down, and now almost a quarter of the population is living below the poverty line. As a Residential Counselor, my work is mostly with adolescents, but they come from all kinds of backgrounds. We have had clients of all races and all socioeconomic backgrounds, ranging from the very poor to the more wealthy. Some of the clients are the children of immigrants and others have been adopted from other countries. We work hard to incorporate their cultures into our work. For example, one client we had was adopted from Haiti at a young age, but old enough to remember. For his birthday and other special occasions, we would get food from his favorite Haitian restaurant. We frequently have clients who identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, and we have had one who identified as transgender during the time I have worked here. A few clients have fallen on the spectrum of mental retardation, and we have had one client who was completely illiterate when he came to us.

I have already had a bit of experience with social change. Like most change, it all starts at home, and I enjoy educating my friends and family on current issues. As stated before, I believe that rape culture is the most pervasive problem in society. Whenever I hear someone use "rape" in a joking way, I try to educate them on what it means and how it can affect survivors. I try to enlighten the people I know to the problem of rape culture- as well as other various problems in society. During my internship at the Elizabeth Freeman Center, I assisted in helping people get restraining orders and orders of protection, along with helping to counsel survivors of trauma. As a Resident Advisor, I tried to make the majority of my programs educational. Along with bringing in my internship supervisor to talk about sexual assault and rape culture, I did workshops on body image, diversity, and mental health.

I don't believe that I will have any problem balancing the demands of the program. As a student leader at my college, we did quite a few workshops on time management, and those skills still stick with me today. I keep a very detailed planner and calendar- all color coded and with their own special sticker system- that I carry with me, along with inputting everything into my phone. With these, I am able to make sure none of my commitments overlap, time-wise, and I am able to keep track of all of the work I need to do. All internship requirements will be scheduled around class time, and will come before any other jobs I may have. I am lucky enough to be financially secure enough to do this, and I have no children, so obtaining my Masters in Social Work will be my top priority. Of course, self-care is incredibly important, so I will try to remember to do that during any free time I may have.