I am completely new to this whole blog thing and look forward to letting you guys get to know me! Brittany Williams is my name and you may not know me but I am a senior social work major at Longwood University. I started school here back in 2013 and took some time off to have my handsome baby boy in 2016. Starting back has been an adjustment but one I wouldn’t change at all. Learning to balance being a stay at home mom and school has been an extremely challenging yet rewarding experience. The journey has been a bumpy road but knowing how life goes that can only be expected. I am curious about seeing how blogging is going to help me become a better writer and make me feel more comfortable about being a little more personable. I am also curious to see how this will help me to become a better audience speaker. I personally struggle sometimes with anxiety and public speaking is not a specialty. I enjoy writing when I am the only one reading it because my grammar and spelling skills are a little scary. I am curious about how this English 400 course can teach me and what I can learn about myself in this course to become a better writer to benefit myself in my major as well as everyday life.

I enjoy studying many social work classes and have had a recent interest in sociology courses. If I had more time or money, I would have definitely considered double majoring in sociology with a concentration in family studies and still study as a social work major. Both major are similar and different at the same time that I feel I could really understand certain dynamics better like families, people,  systems, and theories. These two majors both focus on helping families and people and honestly that is all I want to do no matter how big or small a change I can make. My academic aspirations include graduating from Longwood in 2019 with my bachelors,  hopefully, in honors, get accepted into a graduate school where I can graduate with my masters and focus on either homeschooling and moving into the working world. I am currently looking into either dual master’s degrees at VCU in social work and health or just my master’s in social work. I sometimes feel like it is extremely overwhelming but having to do the best for my family keeps me motivated to reach these goals.  When I get into a career one day a professional aspiration I have is to have job security and gain a ton of experience and knowledge to not only benefit myself but also to teach others who come after me in the field.

When it comes to roles I play in the community I am not sure how to fully answer. I am mainly a stay at home mom that occasionally goes out to grocery shop and go to school but besides that, I really don’t get out much. If there is an important matter I feel strongly about I guess I am an advocate when it is needed. It is just hard sometimes to get involved especially with the government being questionable. Everything in life is just constantly changing and I am not sure how I feel about it. It isn’t that I don’t want to do more but I just don’t have the time. How I see the theme of this course intersecting with my academic and future professional self is it will hopefully improve my vocabulary and grammar, help me become more creative in my problem solving and thinking abilities, and help me meet new people in the process who can review my work and vice versa to keep me a better writer.  I just think being an active citizen in society includes learning how to communicate it in language, writing, and any form we can think of in a clear and understanding way that is class will hopefully help shape. I struggle sometimes saying what I really mean and come across wrong which I hope this course could partially help me realize so I can fix it.

It is so easy to be seen and misunderstood even on the internet that in any job, social network, or online, in general, it is important to keep in mind that what you post on the internet is there forever. All it takes is a job or person to type your name into the search engine and if you ever posted anything inappropriate, misleading, or misinterpreted it can affect you getting that important job or give the wrong impression to important people. Little mistakes made can affect you no matter how successful you are academically. It is important to keep these things in mind so you don’t lose opportunities or chances to better yourself. I hope that with doing this course I can set myself up to become better and more knowledgeable on these aspects. In writing this blog the goals I have are: understand myself a little better in writing, to become more knowledgeable and comfortable in doing blogs, to see growth and understanding, to master skills, to help my son one day, and to in general just be more ready to be out in the professional world. English is important and expressing and communicating is important so being able to do it in a way everyone understands and can relate to just makes that much more of a difference.