A young woman from Serbia, I have been making New York my home since 2014, and working towards a new professional career here in the USA. My life experiences have convinced me to pursue a career in Social Work in order to fulfill my enduring dream of giving my life to helping others, especially vulnerable children. I hope to earn the MSW at XXXX University, my first choice among MSW programs for a variety of reasons. I have been learning about the excellence of Rutgers’ reputation for some time now as a result of having friends and co-workers that have graduated from XXXX. I have invested a lot of time researching graduate programs in Social Work and I am especially drawn to and feel strongly that I am a good fit with XXXX’ mission in Social Work – especially with respect to diversity and the development of global perspective. I am also most impressed by the field-work opportunities that exist for graduate students in your MSW program.

My greatest asset as a candidate for admission to the MSW Program at XXXX is that I have a lot of experience helping vulnerable young people to cope with the difficulties that they are facing. A very hard worker, I am determined to succeed academically and professionally, earning the MSW at Rutgers will enable me to make my maximum lifetime contribution to helping people in need – especially children.

I see my choice of Social Work as a career as deeply rooted in my own personal history, dating back to my early childhood when my mother would always take me with her to bring food to older, needy neighbors who were alone without anyone to care for them. The happy smiles on their faces will always be with me. During our civil war in what was then Yugoslavia, many of the schools where I lived became refugee centers and my mom and I were active in bringing clothes, toys, and food to the refugees. I got to know some of the children and many had such sad stories; I came face-to-face with many traumatized children, myself still a child. This motivated me towards a special, lifelong interest in the wellbeing of children, protecting them from physical, mental, and sexual abuse.

I look forward to spending the balance of my professional life helping children recover from trauma, loss, or abuse. I have confirmed through my volunteer work here in America that Social Work is my calling and that empathy is my greatest resource. Not long after my first trip to the USA, I served as an assistant to a blind girl. I lived with her for one year and we remain close friends. I was much more than an employee of her parents; I was her roommate, her friend, becoming very much like her sister. By the end of the year, she was making good grades and became much more self-sufficient; I will always savor the memories of our time together. I experienced profound joy in this position, confirming my dedication to give the balance of my life to the helping professions as a social worker.

I completed my undergraduate studies in Serbia in the area of Civil and Environmental Protection. I enjoyed studying about natural disasters and emergency services, ways of helping the community. I learned about how to respond to crises, the importance of staying calm and focusing on one’s task at hand. I also learned a lot about the psychological effects of traumatic experiences and the extensive support that is needed by victims. The bulk of my work as a volunteer in Serbia was as a member of an association dedicated to decreasing levels of juvenile delinquency in the capital city, Belgrade. I worked extensively at our local level with drug-related issues, robberies, assaults, and abuse and bullying in schools. I learned a lot about how to cope with delinquency and what the best strategies are to confront the issue. I learned how to support the families of offenders and point them in the right direction in terms of useful resources and strategies. I matured and gained increasing confidence, becoming more creative and independent thinking. During this time I also developed a deep and abiding interest in Roma (Gypses) in Serbia and throughout Europe. These individuals are singular in terms of their vulnerabilities and I learned a great deal about them and the complex factors that serve to account for their substandard living situations in Serbia.

I first came to the USA in 2013 as a participant in a cultural exchange program sponsored by the US State Department and I had the great pleasure to live for 5 months on Cape Cod where I worked in a variety of jobs and met people from all over the world. This early immersion experience helped me to fast-track my improvement in English. In 2014, I was accepted to another cultural exchange program known as "Au Pair", living with an American family and also was attending Boston academy of English for the first year and in the second year I attended LIU. I was always fully prepared for my classes although I had to work full time to support myself. I started studying Spanish and have continued to make constant progress. Currently preparing for the DELE exam at the Servantes Institute in New York City. Japanese was my major in my High School and I also plan to continue to make progress in this language as I hope to use Japanese as well as my Spanish as integral facets of my social work career. My studies have convinced me that communication skills are an important aspect of excellence for social-work-related jobs and I want to excel in this area as a multilingual social worker in a multilingual society.

In Massachusetts I was a member of a volleyball team in the small town of Mansfield and this also helped me to socialize and achieve total fluency in English. Reading is my major passion and this has helped me to excel. I continue to read widely in the areas of juvenile delinquency, drugs and abuse, and bullying. I have now been working with young people in the USA for two years, attending school meetings, learning about problematic issues from their parents and families as well.

I currently study at the American Language Communication Center in NYC which I very much admire for its racial and cultural diversity where I have learned a great deal from faculty from all over the world. which I attend now. I am a model student, most diligent and highly organized. My brother is also here in the USA so I have the support of family close by. After I graduate, I would love to go back to my country Serbia, and implement the knowledge and skills that I learn to improve conditions in our country, organizing communities to invest more in the care of vulnerable children in particular and social work in general.

Perhaps my most adventurous long term goal in social work is to unite social workers throughout Eastern Europe to help each other along the path towards excellency, sharing strategies, challenges, solidarity in the face of similar struggles. In what was once Yugoslavia, in particular, the civil war has left many deep scars that remain today, with traumatic experience continuing to have an impact across generations. Teenagers coming from families destroyed by the war are in special need of help. Whole families have spent many years moving about from place to place, often looking for missing members, and they have lost their compass and flounder in a semi-permanent, up-rooted state.

As a graduate of social work from Rutgers and an MSW professional in Serbia, I look forward to putting my state-of-the-art knowledge and strategies to work inspiring young people, empowering them to follow their hearts and develop their passions so that they can realize their dreams as the result of a lot of hard work and diligent attention to their educations. I want to have a share in directing destinies towards happy endings.

I played volleyball very competitively for 12 years and my team won many competitions on a national level. I also neared the top in table tennis in my country by playing intensively for 3 years. I have won awards for literacy in middle and poetry in high school. When I am not reading I am usually watching a documentary movie. I also enjoy kayaking, hiking and travelling. Probably my single biggest passion, however, is visiting museums.

I thank you for considering my application to Social Work at XXXX.