PERSONAL STATEMENT
Your personal statement is a series of four questions to be answered in essay format in one document, limited to no more than 7 double-spaced pages (Advance Standing applicants: 8-9 pages). Your essay should reflect your best professional writing. Be specific in addressing your experiences and distinguishable qualities and explain how they contribute to your interest in and preparation for the field of social work. Your discussion on the following topics will assist the Admissions Committee in evaluating your capacity and readiness for graduate social work education. In essence, this is your interview with the Admission Committee.
Life Experience, Education, and Volunteer Experience (1-2 pages) describe how personal life experiences, formal education and/or volunteer work have contributed to your decision to seek admission to the graduate social work program and the impact you expect them to have on your professional practice.

* Working in healthcare has transformed my views on helping people. I have given up my time often for free. But it’s unbelievable when you get paid to help others. It feels as if I shouldn’t get paid. I have been in clinical neurophysiology for the past nine years. After completing my bachelor’s degree in social science I had the overwhelming urge to help people. Helping others become my calling card. I am currently in healthcare and I see myself continuing to help change the lives of others through psychotherapy.
I have volunteered at a mosque, homeless shelter, free medical clinic, women’s shelter, library, and veteran’s center.
Social Work philosophy (1-2 pages) Reflect on the following statement from the preamble to the Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers, and explain how it relates to your career goals: “The primary mission of the social work profession is to enhance human well-being and help meet the basic human needs of all people, with particular attention to the needs and empowerment of people who are vulnerable, oppressed, and living in poverty. A historic and defining feature of social work is the profession’s focus on individual well-being in a social context and the well-being of society. Fundamental to social work is attention to the environmental forces that create, contribute to, and address problems in living.”
This is the code of ethics for social workers. Please incorporate a personal philosophy tied in with this statement.
“The mission of the social work profession is rooted in a set of core values. These core values, embraced by social workers throughout the profession’s history, are the foundation of social work’s unique purpose and perspective:

service
social justice
dignity and worth of the person
importance of human relationships
integrity
competence.”

The NASW Code of Ethics serves six purposes:

The Code identifies core values on which social work’s mission is based.
The Code summarizes broad ethical principles that reflect the profession’s core values and establishes a set of specific ethical standards that should be used to guide social work practice.
The Code is designed to help social workers identify relevant considerations when professional obligations conflict or ethical uncertainties arise.
The Code provides ethical standards to which the general public can hold the social work profession accountable.
The Code socializes practitioners new to the field to social work’s mission, values, ethical principles, and ethical standards.
The Code articulates standards that the social work profession itself can use to assess whether social workers have engaged in unethical conduct. NASW has formal procedures to adjudicate ethics complaints filed against its members.* In subscribing to this Code, social workers are required to cooperate in its implementation, participate in NASW adjudication proceedings, and abide by any NASW disciplinary rulings or sanctions based on it.
3.Diversity (1-2 pages) Discuss how contact with persons who differ from you in race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, economic class, political perspectives, religion, or cultural background have affected your personal philosophy, values and world view.

??
4.Personal strengths (1 page) discuss the strengths you bring that will contribute to your success in graduate social work education.

??