Department of Social Work
Guidelines for Personal Statement
Your statement is meant to help us understand who you are and your readiness and capacity for graduate education in social work. We are also interested in your thoughts about the possible contributions you feel you will make, following the completion of your education, to the well being of all peoples, communities, and the planet. What you say will help us to understand how and why our program at Humboldt State University is the best program for you. Overall, your responses will help us assess the goodness-of-fit between your interests, life purpose, and commitments – and those that we hold dear. Finally your statement helps us to ascertain your writing skills and ability to conceptualize your thoughts into a well-developed and coherent essay.
Address the following points in one well-developed essay. We are not looking for short answers to individual items, rather a single coherent and well-conceptualized essay that addresses these points. Please limit your personal statement to no more 1250 words.
• Tell us how you arrived at the decision to pursue a career in social work. What is your reason for pursuing a graduate degree in social work and how do you envision yourself using this degree?
• Identify how our graduate program’s emphasis on working with Native American (Indigenous Peoples) communities is meaningful to you. How do you understand the effects of colonization on the social, cultural, and political lives and rights of these populations and how has this influenced your desire to be a social worker?
• Identify how our graduate program’s emphasis on working in rural communities is meaningful to you. What are some of the unique challenges of rural social work and how do you envision yourself working with these challenges?
• Discuss how your own privilege has informed your interaction with people whose lives, worldviews, beliefs, and/or values are different from your own (e.g., culture, ethnicity, ability, class, religion, sexuality, and/or politics).
• Discuss how you have engaged in activism, advocacy and social justice in the past and how these fit into your pursuit of a graduate education in social work and how they will continue to be a part of your life following your studies.
• How have your own experiences of marginalization and oppression influenced the person you are today and how will you incorporate what you have learned into your future as a social worker?
• What is your professional goal and how will the HSU MSW program help you achieve it?
NOTE: Please name your document using your first and last name separated with a period (i.e. John.Doe)
***** I have attached my old personal statement and added to the new personal statement. Please use all the information you need from the old personal statement while answering the questionnaires. *******
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