My Story Part 13 – Social Work?

This is going to be a short story this week; I have an interview this morning for my internship next fall.

When I was still working and they had announced that they were going to close the factory next year, they offered us a severance package that included tuition reimbursement for a year. So I started to take STEP classes at the University of Connecticut School of Social Work. The STEP classes are non-matriculating courses that came be transferred to into the matriculating program. It is a way to see if you can handle the classes in the master’s program.

When I told my fellow employees that I was going to get my Master in Social Work, they all said why? I told them that I wanted to give back to society, but that was only half of the story. What I really wanted to do was work for the trans-community to achieve equal rights.

I was planning on retiring a year after when I was laid-off so I was already thinking about what I wanted to do when I retired, the lay-off just speeded up my plans by a year. I was asking friends and acquaintances what I could do to help the trans-community and everyone said, get my MSW. It was only a couple of years later that I found out that everyone I asked had a MSW.

So that is why I am working for my MSW and why I am heading off for my interview.