At the central core of my wanting to become a social worker is God. It is my Christianity that speaks to me to live a life of service for the poor and underprivileged. While studying towards the MSW is not exactly like taking a vow of poverty, material riches are way down the page on my list of priorities. I am a compassionate man, sensitive, a good listener; and I receive my greatest joy in life by working for others. Being Latino is also an integral part of my professional self-understanding. I look forward to doing research and working professionally in areas with large Latino populations, thus using my Latinness as a special professional asset. It is because going to church is such a crucial factor in my life that I have such a pronounced love for old people.
This is why I am incredibly determined to pursue a special interest in Gerontology. But I am also very much engaged with young people and the need for preventative social services that can help young men, mostly minority and disproportionately Latino who are at risk for juvenile delinquency and later serious infringements of the law, typically resulting in jail time that all too often turns out to be the best part of one's life. I want to work to keep people out of the prison system. I am young and I will have the special privilege of working with both important target populations throughout my career.
Frankly, I think that my two major concerns, elderly people on the one hand, and young people at risk for drugs and legal problems on the other, are quite compatible. I even have professional daydreams of someday bringing these two target groups together. Children benefit from being exposed to older people. I grew up loving elderly members of my Christian congregation and this is especially healthy. I would someday like to see more interest taken in bringing young and elderly people together, especially at-risk teens.
XXXX University because I want to do everything that is within my power to enhance human wellbeing. My Mexican grandfather was a hardworking man and a dedicated father and husband, so I have always looked up to him very much. Service is what I most admire in people and my grandfather was the kind of person who went out of his way to help others.
Finally, my daughter is also a motivating factor in why I want to go to graduate school and study social work. She is the single most intense source of motivation in my life, the light at the end of my tunnel. She has taught me so much about loving, teaching, and the special joys of raising a young child. She has motivated me to reach out and embrace higher education in social work to secure a more humane future for her and make our world a better place for her and all her neighbors to share.
I understand that the Social Work profession is determined by scientific inquiry into how those in need of particular care in our society might best be dealt with. I see the social work profession as especially bound by codes of honor and professional ethics that stress fidelity to principle and the utmost professionalism in all aspects of one's position as a social worker. The social worker, from this perspective, is the one who is designated to apply the conclusions of scientific inquiry to concrete community institutions and policies. As a professional social worker with an MSW from XXXX, I will see myself as an advocate for the target populations with which I am concerned and working on their behalf. My dedication to social work is very much bound up with my love for the target populations to which I am drawn, or better said, my love for old people, on the one hand, and the chronic sense of urgency that I see with at risk teens.
My family is incredibly supportive of my going to graduate school and they are willing to help me in any way that they can. I would also be incredibly grateful for any financial aid that I might receive from XXXX. As a Latino man with an Asian wife, our little family is emblematic of diversity and my great appreciation of diversity is one of my strengths as a candidate for your program. My psychology major was an excellent choice as far as it has prepared me well for facing many of the psychological challenges that I will confront in graduate school and as a professional social worker. I am an extremely hard worker and a loyal collaborator. In fact, I have been with the same employer now for the last 10 years where I have a lot of supervisory experience. I have learned about human psychology on the job as well. I also assisted one of my professors in doing mentor work at Compton CC. Being Latino is important to me as an example to the community, communicating professionally in Spanish as well as English. We Latinos are hardworking people that need a chance in society. XXXX has the best MSW program in the area and I feel that they will provide me with the optimum credentials to be successful in the future as a social worker, by setting a positive role model for other young Latinos to follow. I want to thank you for your consideration of my application.
MSW Christian Service Personal Purpose God, Latino