Thursday, September 6, 2012

Putting Theory Into Practice


Today I attended my first university course in over 20 years.  It's been that long since I graduated with a Bachelor's degree.  Today was the first day of my Family Therapy (Family-Focused Social Work Practice) course, in the Faculty of Social Work, Graduate Studies Program.  This is my first step in my journey towards obtaining a Master of Social Work degree at the University of Manitoba.

Today we went over our class outline.  I was pleasantly surprised (and a wee bit anxious) as we went over the details.  Not only are we doing theory work (i.e. reading lots), writing papers, and doing a research project, we get to put our theory to practice by working with a REAL family.

I and another student will be matched up with a family, either a couple or a family with young children under age 12.  We will work as a dyad.

It's exciting for me to start this journey.  I am looking forward to this new adventure.  It is a new chapter in the story of my life.

Next week I start another new course.  I am taking two courses this semester.

I will be doing a lot of reading, writing, and studying.

I am probably the oldest student in my class.  I feel like I can bring a lot of life experiences to the table.

Lifelong learning.  I think I like it.

Have an awesome day,

Angela G. Gentile

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Angela,

Congratulations on your 1st day back to school.

And with your life experiences, you can instead look at it as "putting practice into theory" rather than "putting theory into practice".

Learning is indeed lifelong...

Alex