When I was in high school, I knew three things about what I wanted for my future career: first, I wanted to work directly with people; second, I wanted it to promote mental well-being; and third, I wanted it to be rooted in social justice and human rights. I found all of this in social work.
March was National Social Work Month, a time to celebrate and recognize the contributions of social workers who play a vital role in supporting individuals, families, and communities in managing difficulties in their everyday lives. The Canadian Association of Social Workers captured it well with their theme for the month: "Social Work is Everywhere." Social workers can be found in nearly every setting, including hospitals, clinics, schools, community organizations, correctional facilities, government offices, and so much more. The diversity of roles in social work is so vast that even experienced professionals often have trouble defining the scope of their work. Yet, what remains constant—and what resonates most with me—is social work's emphasis on compassion for others and its pursuit of social justice.
Where I grew up, I became increasingly aware of how societal injustices shaped the world around me. Income inequality dictated who had access to opportunities and who faced constant obstacles just to get by. Healthcare wasn’t equally available to all, with barriers like high costs and endless waitlists standing between people and essential care. Homelessness and addiction became more widespread, but those who experienced them were often reduced to stereotypes, their struggles dismissed, and their humanity ignored. As I grew older, these inequalities became impossible to overlook. They weren’t distant problems—they were right in front of me, shaping the lives of those around me in both visible and unseen ways.
But hardship was not only written in policies and systems—it lived in the quiet corners of everyday life. I saw it in friends grappling with mental health crises, in classmates navigating the loss of loved ones to illness, and in families torn by conflict. I experienced some of these challenges myself. Hardship does not always scream—it can hide behind perfect grades, the brightest smiles, or the careful way someone says, “I’m fine.” If we only look at the surface, we may miss it, but if we look deeper and listen beyond what is said, we will understand that hardship is not rare nor selective—it is woven into the fabric of every life, in different shades and patterns.
My recognition of these realities led me to those three guiding principles for my future career. As a result, I applied to the Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) at 51łÔąĎÍřand began the program in 2021. Through the degree, I had the opportunity to gain over 700 hours of clinical social work experience in Quebec’s public healthcare system. I worked in the Intellectual Disabilities, Autism Spectrum Disorder, and Physical Disabilities program at our community health and social service clinics, conducting psychosocial assessments and developing intervention plans in collaboration with clients and their families. I also worked in a hospital, navigating complex challenges with patients and families on internal medicine, palliative care, geriatrics, and oncology wards, as well as the emergency department and intensive care unit. In these roles, I saw even more concretely how hardship is deeply woven into individual lives, communities, and society as a whole—often hidden from view unless one is directly involved in the field.
Despite the weight of these challenges, what underlies the social work profession is the unwavering belief in resilience and hope. Even in the face of hardship and social injustice, there is so much strength and opportunities for change to be found in those we work with—even if small or incremental. It is this sense of possibility and the ability to create a positive impact that drives my passion for this profession.
My social work studies also inspired further exploration beyond our traditional course material. In one of my very first classes, we discussed how an emotionally traumatic experience can profoundly impact an individual and influence behaviour across their lifespan. I grew curious about the brain, the basis of all behaviour, and wished to explore the concrete, long-term impacts of trauma on brain structure and chemistry, which in addition to psychological and socio-environmental elements, could give a more complete picture of human difficulties.
This led me to add a Minor Concentration in Science for Arts Students to my BSW. With guidance from the program advisor, Nancy Nelson, I curated a focus in Neuropsychology, selecting courses in cellular and molecular biology, social psychology, and behavioural and affective neuroscience. This path opened doors I never expected to walk through given my original academic trajectory. In summer 2024, I received a Biology Summer Research Award and began working in a neurobiology lab, the Sarah Woolley Lab, where I was trained in wet and dry lab skills such as running behavioural experiments, slicing brain tissue, conducting immunohistochemistry assays, taking electron microscopy images of neurons, and machine learning and programming for data analysis. I am still part of the lab, now through an eight-month course completing an independent research project.
It was my intention to integrate the skills I gained in my two academic programs to effect real change in societal issues. With an interdisciplinary perspective—looking from the microscopic to the macroscopic level—I hoped I could better understand individual and societal hardship. This led me to apply to the MSc in Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford.
My proposed master’s project aims to lay the foundation for the development of a policy framework that addresses systemic barriers to early assessment and intervention for anxiety and depression in neurodivergent youth. Because of their dual diagnoses, neurodivergent youth with anxiety and depression face unique challenges and often receive inadequate care, compounding their risk of poor mental health outcomes over time and other long-term consequences such as reduced educational attainment and employment opportunities. My research will first apply scientific methods to identify key focus areas for improvement among this complex interplay of biological, psychological, and socio-environmental factors. The second step would be to develop policies that address them, all in collaboration with stakeholders that include neurodivergent youth, their parents or caregivers, healthcare providers, educators, and policymakers.
Whether in Canada, the United Kingdom, or beyond, my ultimate goal is to work within systems and develop evidence-based, actionable interventions and policies that will tangibly improve mental health outcomes. Particularly as someone who currently works as a clinician and is a soon-to-be registered social worker, conducting work that translates to intervention and incorporating the perspectives of stakeholders is central to any work I do. I maintain that research and resulting interventions must be developed with those most affected by the outcomes.
It was this genuine passion to support others and pursue social justice on a grand scale that led me to apply for a 2025 Rhodes Scholarship for Canada—and also what I personally believe carried me through to the finals. And though this journey toward graduate school means taking a step away from practicing as a social worker, I hold close the words of one of my social work professors who said, “we are not simply training you to be social workers; we are training you to do social work." To me, social work is everything my high school self wanted; it is working directly with people and promoting mental well-being; it is engaging in practices that are rooted in social justice and human rights; it is having the compassion to recognize injustices in systems and policies, along with those that exist in the people in our immediate surroundings, and taking action.
Social work is everywhere. No matter where my career takes me—whether as a clinician, researcher, policymaker, or advocate; whether with the job title of a social worker or any other—I will always carry the heart of social work with me. I will always do social work.
Everything I do was made possible through the support of my family and my mentors in the School of Social Work, especially Dr. Julia Krane and Dr. Pam Orzeck.