Welcome to my MSW blog. I should probably introduce myself, or at least tell you how I became a social work student. It's certainly not a discipline I ever thought I’d study. In fact, as I sit here looking forward to my 2nd year in NYU’s 3-year part-time program, it's hard to imagine that exactly a year ago, I had no plans to enroll in social work school. What a difference a year makes!
Of all of the descriptors people have used to explain my career path, I never in my wildest dreams would have imagined “social worker” would ever have been one of them. Engineer? Yes. MBA? Yes. Investment Manager at a hedge fund? Yes. But a social worker??? If anything, I set out to be a doctor when I was in high school, and my career track seems to have been hijacked many times since then.
After making the “right” career choice to go into engineering, and then getting a full-time MBA a few years later, I ended up working in financial services. The challenge and prestige of financial services lured me to it, I won’t lie. (I am a Midwestern girl, and the idea of working in New York City in financial services held its own mythical appeal . . who didn’t read Tom Wolfe’s “Bonfire of the Vanities” and dream of being a “Master of the Universe”? Or watch the movie ‘Wall Street’ and convince herself that Gordon Gecko wasn’t “that bad”? . . . and as much as I wish I could sit here and say “Just Kidding" the truth is that it was, at one point, my dream career). That said, I think I’ve learned my lesson. I think . .
As much as I enjoyed the challenge of the work, and managing my own investments, I began to realize how bare the work felt to me. I found myself enjoying my 3 hours a week of volunteer work with children (and the 10+ hours of preparation I was putting into it) significantly more than my day job. I eventually started to feel a strong pull toward working with people in a more direct manner, which could no longer be ignored. Ultimately, I missed the idea of working with people in order to make the world a better place. A cheesy cliché, perhaps, but after several challenging and successful careers, I’ve come to realize that I want to spend the rest of my life doing work that’s personally meaningful.
So, that explains that I believe engineering, financial services, and perhaps even medicine were the wrong careers for me. How did I get to social work?
Really, it was all quite accidental, though it has also proven to be one of the best things that has ever happened to me. After speaking with friends who suggested that I consider registering for a night course to see if (yet another) career change may be in order, I enrolled in a few classes. And, as they say, the rest is history.