Silver School of Social Work at NYU

Introduction to Social Work First Essay for UNDSW-1 Sijia Zhao Professor: Dr. Zolia A Del-Villar Silver School of Social Work at NYU It all started with a simple decision: going abroad. When I was a little kid, I have always been watching those American cartoons and wondering what would the United States be like. In my opinion, it would be a homogeneous place just like China. We have Asians, they have whites. Later on, when I started to watch some TV shows and movies, I realized that there are more races than I could have imagined, but still, most of the leading and popular characters are whites. My opinion hasn't changed much over the years. During the summer of 2011, I was approved by Columbia University’s summer program. As a 10th grader in an international high school in China, I went on my first trip visiting the US. I felt like I know the country so much by watching those movies and I will never be surprised, but the second I get off the airplane, I know I was wrong. People of varied color and race were all over the place. It was such a shock for someone who has lived in a homogeneous society for her entire life. This is my first realization of diversity. 3 weeks of the class went by fast. I felt in love with the diversity here and I knew I would come back. 3 years later, I was admitted by the University of California at Santa Barbara. Due to my parents' suggestion, I started to study sociology at UCSB. Everything seemed smooth, but I felt like I did not get what I want. During the third quarter of my freshman year, I got the chance to enroll in a media-related communication course and after 10 weeks of instruction, I decided that I want to study new media in the future. However, Santa Barbara is too small a town for someone who wants to study new media. New York City pops into my mind. It is such a modern and diverse city for media, isn’t it? All of a sudden, NYU became my dream school. I started to contact someone at NYU for transfer information. I was told that I can’t transfer to the media culture and communication major directly. “What you can do is transfer to NYU first and then transfer to the major you want a semester after that.” the admission officer said. “I would recommend the silver school of social work, it's one of our best schools." Without even considering, I applied for silver school of social work. At the time I only wanted to go to NYC and did not care what major it is. It was my first day at NYU and I was at 1 Washington square meeting my advisor Juan. “So why are you taking so many classes that are unrelated to your major?" I explain the situation to him. “But you should still take at least one silver class, you can take a look and enrolled in yourself.” A class called DROP (discrimination, racism, oppression, and privilege) suddenly catches my eyes, I quickly enrolled in the course and decided not to think about that too much. On the first day before class, I started to be super anxious because I don't even know what social work is. Is it that kind of social welfare work that volunteers do? Why would they have a major in the University Just for Volunteer Works? With all those doubts, I stepped into the classroom. Yet I was wrong for the second time. My first class at silver certainl...