Analytical Essay

Choosing Social Work as my major

Getting into university, I could finally choose what I really want to study and figure out what my future would be like. Before flipping through the list of majors I could consider, I had already made up my mind when I was studying in secondary school. In this essay, I am going to analyze why I should choose Social Work as my major in terms of the aspect of my interests, career outlook, my personality

To start with, voluntary work was compulsory for us to do ever since I was in secondary school. At first, I thought it would be a wasteful of time and extremely boring for us to help a bunch of strangers. Surprisingly, the first volunteering experience completely changed my impression towards social work. It was a program which our class has to be the tutor for a group of ethnic minorities for four weeks. Originally, I thought it was an impossible thing for us to do as I imagined that there will be a lot of communication problems and the kids would be a mess for us to handle. However, it turned out to be an amusing experience that we can understand more about the culture of the minorities and at the same time fulfilling a responsibility to help them cope with their school life. Since then, I was very keen on joining different kinds of voluntary work and started to develop my interest in studying Social Work as my major in the future. What’s more, I regard myself as a patient and outgoing person. I am confident in helping others when they are in need and are willing to communicate with all kinds of people. There are a lot of target groups such as elderly, ethnic minorities, children who we can help in Hong Kong, I feel like I can make use of my qualities and help these people’s lives easier. Although the salary of a social worker might not be high, I don’t expect much of it as I want to do what I like instead of getting into a well-paid job solely because of the payroll.

Furthermore, I always assume studying Social Work would be a lot of fun. It’s mostly because of the chance for me to learn comparative theories to work with different kinds of individuals, families or organizations, and to utilize communication skills differentially and creatively. Furthermore, I can learn more about different social issues such as ageing population, drug abuse problems in the society and contribute to the community by helping to improve these problems in the future as a social worker. Nowadays, there are a lot of social problems are being ignored by the majority of us, for example, the problem of wasting too much food. By studying this major, I can join into the line of help saving our community. Moreover, students of the major are required to go social work practice, in this case, I can gain more experience before I become a social worker. This could help me to prepare myself before I step into the society in advance.

I know a lot could change from now, but Social Work would be my first priority when choosing my major at the moment. At the same time, I am still open to other options and would like to understand more what other majors are about before I made the final decision. Hopefully, I could choose the most suitable major for myself and enjoy the next three years of university studies.