“Hey, what about Social Work?”
Okay, so I make social work sound glamorous and exciting, don’t I? And, I am sure you are wanting to know, why the f*ck I chose this as my career because, GIRL….it is an investment for something I so obviously hate. Well, this is not an easy answer and no, I don’t hate it, Debbie. Honestly, I wish I had some deep and beautiful story about how I found my calling. It would have made my first day of graduate school a hell of a lot less awkward. Truthfully, when I was growing up, I never really knew what I wanted to be. I would vacillate between a lawyer, a doctor, a nurse, and a princess, all in the span of an hour. My one goal in life: go to college.
The adults in my life made sure I understood that was the expectation and I thrived in it. I am a quadruple threat after all: oldest sibling, daughter, grandchild, AND granddaughter. By the time college came around, I knew what I wanted to be. A nurse. I graduated with a class of just under 900 students from a school in northern Utah, and moved to the middle of Wisconsin for undergraduate school. Bright eyed and ready to thrive in one of the best nursing schools, I failed…For the first time in my life. I failed academically. I hated chemistry, biology, human anatomy and physiology and these were just the gen eds. Then I found Psychology 101 and the pineal gland. It’s a tiny endocrine gland in the middle of your brain that helps regulate your body’s circadian rhythm by secreting melatonin (clevelandclinic.org). Rene Descartes, a 17th century philosopher, identified this as the “principal seat of the soul” and the central point of interaction between the mind and the body. He believed this because all other structures are duplicated on both sides, so it must be where our thoughts, sensations, and volitions occur (plato.stanford.edu). When I tell you I was hooked, I mean I was telling everyone about this shit. By the end of my freshman year, I was a declared Psychology major.
I lived and breathed Psychology. I took every class, I studied abroad (in South Africa and believe me, we will get there eventually), I TA’d (twice), I was a lab assistant (TWICE), I was a research assistant (TWICEEEE)…BUT…. Ask anyone, and you will hear that it is hard to do much with just a Bachelor in Psychology, so I had to choose something to do after I graduated. By Christmas my senior year, I was preparing to graduate with a major in Psychology and a double minor in Human Development and Women’s and Gender Studies but still no plan. I was running out of time to apply for graduate school but hated the idea of going into something I would ultimately grow to dislike (hilarious, right?). I had done research in Neuroscience and Social Psychology. Done a podcast on anger and taught students on the stages of development but making a career out of it felt daunting. But that Christmas, my dad and I were sitting and watching A Christmas Story (as one does on repeat in the Midwest). I was having my usual late-night crisis and he was scrolling USA.gov (who else here has a veteran father?), when he looked at me and said “hey, what about social work?”.
