What Are Your Specific Professional Goals? Personal Statement Example

I see helping others as the overall driving force of my professional career, and it is this desire that has shaped my professional goals.I have a heart for children in particular, as well as for marginalized and vulnerable populations, and my desires to help these groups have led me to the conclusion that working with either the DCF or the public school system as a social worker would be an optimal next step for me. Currently I am a physical education paraprofessional, and in that capacity I help children with disabilities learn how to play sports. I want to continue to help children and their families find ways to live better, fuller, and happier lives, and I believe this would be an excellent way to proceed.

My longer term goal is to open my own practice as a clinical social worker. I plan to either run a private practice, or else contract with outside organizations to provide clinical social work. Helping other people is my passion, something I desire to do as a full-time career for the rest of my life. Again, I imagine I will work mostly with children and their families. I believe that addressing issues connected to poverty and structural oppression will be my main direction in my career.

I chose the Saint Leo University Master of Social Work Program both because of its all-around excellent reputation, and because of its emphasis on helping to empower the disempowered. I believe Saint Leo will help me to better learn how todo my part to overcome discrimination, oppression, and social injustice. The program’s emphasis on advanced clinical practice will help me to learn how to best meet the needs of these populations.

I believe in the high ideals of doing good and helping others, but I also recognize the importance of learning in order to understand how to achieve these high ideals. This is exactly why I want to undertake the Saint Leo University Master of Social Work Program. For me to be an effective social worker, I will need to master important skills to help me ascertain who truly needs help, and what kind of help any given individual or family may require. The enterprise of social work is a multi-faceted and complex one, and I want a program that will challenge me intellectually and practically so that I can grow as a person and as a professional.

For me, the Saint Leo University Master of Social Work Program represents the means to achieving the only kind of career I have ever wanted: a life helping other people to live better, fuller, and happier lives. I already have a great deal of experience helping special needs children in my work as a PE paraprofessional, and now I am looking to take the next step in my career as a social worker.

Completing the normal daytime work hours for the internships will be quite doable for me. Once I have my B.S. in psychology, I am planning to work at either DCF or the Children’s Home Society. My plan is to use some of those hours to complete the requirement for internship hours. I believe in being proactive and innovative in my education, and I believe this would be an excellent way to both fulfill the requirement for the internships, and to further my career and my education at the same time. My own preference would be to do this, because I like to stay very busy and hands-on.

Since I am married and have a husband who is gainfully employed, there is another option. My husband and I have talked about it, and we have agreed that he will support our family financially if I need to not work while completing my education. This would allow me to complete the hours for the internships with ease, since it would free up a great deal of time during my day.

Fundamentally, my education is profoundly important to me. I am pursuing my education because I want to be able to better serve other people. Because my education is a means toward that end, I am willing to make sacrifices and work very hard to achieve and surpass the requirements of the program.

As I approach the profession of social work, I will be able to draw on a great many personal strengths. For one thing, I have long had an understanding of the problems and needs of other people, and this has always motivated me to want to help them out of a deep sympathy. I was adopted at a young age, and this impacted me a great deal. The love my adoptive parents showed me in making me a part of their family made me want to help other people and show them kindness in return.

When I was 11, my mother became disabled, and for years after that I watched doctors, psychologists, and many other professionals come into and out of my home. This experience made me want to help people. It was hard to see my mother in the condition she was in, but I saw how these professionals were helping her to take control of her life again. Seeing that made me wish I could do the same thing, and this desire has shaped the whole of my professional career, and my life more generally. I have a deep passion for my work as a result, and on many different occasions the parents of the children I help have told me it shows.

I also have a great deal of practice with conflict resolution. The children I help vary a great deal in their personalities, of course, and in their level of functionality. These differences sometimes lead to misunderstandings and conflicts, in addition to the kinds of things children often fight about. I have had to become very good at separating children who are upset with each other, and then responding to the situation in a way that is appropriate based on many different factors.

Because I am passionate about helping them, I always take the time to listen to the children. I think good listening skills are vital. When the children fight or otherwise make each other upset, often one or more of them will need to be soothed and reassured; on many occasions I have had to correct them for inappropriate or simply unkind behavior. Between my tendencies to be patient and listen carefully, and the great deal of practice I have had, I have become very good at doing this.

I recognize that, like everyone, I have my limitations. I think sometimes I have had to work at being firmer on those occasions when one of the children has actually been causing trouble, as opposed to a misunderstanding or miscommunication. Because I work in physical education and coach a co-ed soccer team on a volunteer basis, poor sportsmanship issues sometimes come up, although most of the time everyone gets along very well. Being firm is not something that comes naturally to me, and there have been situations where I erred on the side of not being firm enough with children who were causing problems. Still, with time I believe I have learned to redress this limitation, and I am now much better in this area.

In my capacity as a physical education paraprofessional, I have worked with a very diverse clientele. The children and parents I help are from many different walks of life, and the children often have very differing needs. Ultimately, however, I have come to see that they all have common needs as human beings, and I work with them on that basis.

Turning to my personal life, I also have two young children of my own. Being a parent is a delight, and I see it as a profound source of strength: my children sometimes test and challenge me, but they also motivate me to want to succeed so that I can model good behavior for them. I have learned so much from them, and I feel they help to keep me accountable. Additionally,for the last two years I have volunteered as a soccer coach for a co-ed team. Coaching has also helped me build my skills in working with young people and their parents. It has been an immensely enriching experience.