cheezliz

Hello! I am a 22 year old young professional with a BA in psychology as well as minors in Human Development and Family Studies, Spanish, and Sex and Gender Studies. I am interested in pursuing a Masters degree in Social Work, but I'm not sure that my application would be strong enough. I graduated with a 3.3 GPA (mostly honors classes, but I did not graduate with honors) in 2013. I have not taken the GRE yet. I have worked for an environmental company on and off since 2008 (6 years). During high school and college, I worked as an Lead Paint Litigation Intern over summer and winter breaks. When I graduated, I worked at a competing company for 9 months. I returned to the original environmental company as a full-time Lead Paint Case Analyst and have been working there since April 2014 (6 months). I do not enjoy the work, but it allows me to live on my own and save money for my education. Because I spend most of my time reading and summarizing the personal files of low-income, inner-city Baltimore children and their families (medical records, environmental records, DSS, depositions, housing authority, etc.), I believe I can relate my experience here to certain parts of case management. Other aspects of my current job include going out in the field to observe lead-based paint inspections of vacant and dilapidated homes and doing lead-based paint related research. I think the time that I have spent with this company shows a great deal of loyalty and significant office experience. In my junior year of college, I spent a semester as a psychology of linguistics research assistant but did not gain much from the experience. I am currently applying to a part-time ADHD related research position at Johns Hopkins which will better fit my interests. During my senior year of college I worked as a teaching assistant for a human sexuality course and a peer mentor/art therapy intern at a center for adults with severe and persistent mental disorders. I feel that these are my most relevant work experiences, but they were each only a semester long. I am looking for volunteer opportunities in my area and found a homeless shelter down the street from me that may be a good fit. I'm excited to hear back from them. They have openings for an administrative assistant, bingo facilitator, karaoke host, arts and crafts workshop facilitator, dinner server, and movie workshop facilitator, all of which I feel capable of doing. I mentioned my plans to pursue an MSW and LCSW to the volunteer coordinator in my email and am waiting to hear back. My top choices are UMD Baltimore and SFSU or other California schools in the Bay area. I was interested in Widener's MSW/Human Sexuality Ph.D. but it is out of my price range. I am willing to wait a year before applying if I were to attend a public California school in order to become a resident and gain more experience (especially because I'm not sure what I want to concentrate on besides a clinical focus). The in-state tuition is very tempting. Out-of-state tuition for SFSU is similar to UMD in-state. I've heard that SFSU is very selective, so where would you recommend I beef up my resume? Thank you for reading!