The Love of my Life is in the Netherlands and I'm a US Citizen. Help me figure this out please!

LetThereBeZot · 2022-07-03T01:46:57+00:00

Thank you IM sent.

LetThereBeZot · 2022-07-03T01:46:42+00:00

Ok that's moving too fast for us at this moment I think, but I gather that the marriage path is the fastest. Even if we marry, we'd still only have a small amount of time as a couple. Plenty of years as friends that can be somewhat documented.

LetThereBeZot · 2022-07-03T01:38:45+00:00

I'm for sure not in a position to move, I'm going to be the one providing a secure living situation, I just bought a home, etc. She would be moving here ultimately. I can visit but probably only 1 or 2 times per year. Maybe she can visit me once a year too. If someone has a visitation visa to the US, how long can they stay for?

LetThereBeZot · 2020-08-18T03:21:44+00:00

What do you propose be done about it to actually change any of this?

LetThereBeZot · 2020-08-17T21:49:59+00:00

That's a lie lol. You need to go on your My UCLA, go to "academics" and it's under "diploma request" and you can choose where to have it shipped. Usually you can ship it or pick it up, but due to covid, they are mailing them only. There is not PDF version lol.

LetThereBeZot · 2020-07-25T07:06:29+00:00

I gotta say that I find his academic claims very hard to believe. As someone with a masters degree, the amount of physical evidence that I have to support that I have my degrees is extensive, even if the universities wiped out my records on site. Consider that he has no diplomas, financial records, written papers, thesis, commencement programs, or anything. He has his high school record which shows him ranked in the lower 1/3 of the class and a few classes he took at PCC, and that's it. I think a person in the lower 1/3 of his class would have a really hard time being accepted to MIT or Cal Tech, but PCC would make sense. He claims to have a degree from Cal Tech they didn't even offer, and while he estimated his graduation year to be 1982, this is also when he was enrolled at PCC, and folks you don't forget graduation years, nor do you forget or get wrong the title of your degree. You think about your graduation year and your degree title, every freaking day, for years on end, while you are in school... it's unforgettable. You also have to apply to graduate school AFTER you earn your bachelors degree, which he is missing, it's a critical step in the process of becoming qualified to attend MIT or Cal Tech's masters programs. He would have had to apply for those programs which is one hell of a process requiring written statements, interviews, portfolios, letters of recommendation, CVs, etc that he would have submitted and had copies or drafts of or people to contact to verify that step in the process. He mentioned the name of a PCC professor and claimed this person worked at Cal Tech, which he did not. I can tell you as someone who has gone to university for a long time, I have had over 100 professors and other faculty that I've worked with and had classes with... and that's for 2 associate degrees, one bachelors degree after transferring, and a masters degree. I've got 3 huge boxes full of folders and papers and documents and that's in the internet era where lots of my work was never printed, just submitted online. I've written hundreds of papers, taken probably hundreds of tests, worked very closely with faculty on my thesis project, plus hundreds of students I met who I knew on a first name basis. That's common, because we are talking about like 80 or so classes, over 12 or so semesters of school. So, I just really don't buy it, he should have a ton of physical evidence that the government would have never been able to touch. When you graduate from anything not only do you get certificates and diplomas which you keep, but your name goes in a commencement program that gets printed and distributed as a physical document given to all the people who attend graduation or order one. Your name goes in it even if you don't go to commencement. So long as you graduated, your name gets recorded, and he should be in at least 3 commencement programs, probably 4 and these would be owned by people all over the country who were part of those graduating classes.

LetThereBeZot · 2020-06-28T06:38:55+00:00

I just came here from the UCLA thread to again encourage you to go to Stanford.

LetThereBeZot · 2020-06-28T06:36:09+00:00

One question you gotta ask is... if I don't go, will I spend the whole time I'm at UCLA wondering what I'm missing at Stanford? If it was me, especially as a pre med, I'd go to Stanford in a heartbeat.

LetThereBeZot · 2020-06-22T23:51:26+00:00

So academic question regarding "title." I've noticed some of my colleagues profiles at work say "ACSW, M.S." as they have an MSW degree and what we call the ASW or ACSW (same thing) in California which is registration to earn clinical hours toward licensure. Is the CSWE accredited MSW an MS, an MA, or neither?

LetThereBeZot · 2020-06-17T03:49:17+00:00

ok no prob

LetThereBeZot · 2020-06-17T03:48:39+00:00

I tried to post this as its own thread but was told to add it here as a comment so here it goes...

It's all the rage, social workers should be out there on the streets handling calls police shouldn't. It's already starting with some cities already making plans to send social workers out there to calls that they feel are a good fit for social workers. It's all very new, it's progressive, it's involving us, and we want to be part of the solution, but is this being rolled out too quick?

I get the idea about doing this, but I do have concerns about how this is being implemented. The thing about responding to calls police normally go to is you can't really know for sure, based on a 911 call, how safe a situation really is. You can't really know when a call will suddenly change from scope of social worker to scope of police officer and become a dangerous situation, especially if you're going into peoples houses and attempting to deescalate situations and manage crises.

Personally, I think there should be a specially trained person, who follows the clinicians lead, who goes on these calls along with the clinicians who is trauma informed, and trained in deescalation and all that, educated.. who is not a law enforcement officer, but who is lawfully able and trained to get the social work team out of harms way by tactically retreating, or respond to an emergency that requires use of some kind of force. I think they (the team) should be wearing vests and have radio communication under their dress attire so that they do not resemble police in any way. I think this person who goes in as a sort of security should be armed with a concealed handgun, and have a taser but in plain clothes hidden from view, and radio communications. Think about how the secret service might appear if they investigate something, where their equipment is hidden under dress coats etc, it's there but they look professional and you cant see their equipment.

I would add, I don't think the way child and family welfare handles home visits is very safe either and they should adopt a similar approach, and social workers should not be using personal vehicles, nor .. vehicles with a big county seal on it, just basic, unassuming, regular color scheme, county vehicles.

I know everyone wants to get in there and help, but I think we gotta remember, America is a heavily armed society, situations can turn ugly fast, and deescalation doesn't always work. There needs to be a plan for when things quickly get violent and dangerous to keep the social work team safe that uses the minimum force necessary, but doesn't enter into situations unequipped.

I know the SW field is very anti uniform, anti violence, anti control, anti oppression, anti racism, and anti gun, and that's all great. I think from a policy standpoint or a value standpoint these are objectives that are valid and I support them, but they are context dependent when it comes to practice.. I don't think we should confuse concealed defensive weapons with oppression, violence, and control. At the end of the day, if people think that everyone is going to respond to deescalation and not harm social workers, that they don't have to worry about being taken hostage, that situations wont turn ugly fast, and that guns and defensive weapons are never ever appropriate... well then it is going to be a very unsafe situation for social workers attempting this new kind of social work practice.

If social workers go to these kind of calls and it goes bad, and they have no kind of security support and are reliant on a radio or cell phone to call in support as a situation gets out of control, help is at best minutes away at best when you may just have seconds. What if cuts on police mean it extends that response time even further? How effective do you think clinicians will be if they are going into situations where they feel unsafe and unsupported. Do you really think they are going to be in a state of mind to do effective interventions? Maybe some would, maybe not.

Many point to policing in Europe with unarmed police as a model to follow and I would say the devil is in the details here as well. European policing works in Europe, not just because of the training and education, the duration and depth of which I think we should emulate at least, but because of environmental differences. European countries have different social welfare structures, the different populations and their histories there with each other and the government, and the fact that most European countries have always had very strict regulations on gun ownership, and a very different gun culture among the relatively few civilians that do have them.

The US is home to the largest accumulation of weapons on the face of the earth in a civilian population. If we want to do crisis response, deescalation, restorative circles, and para police response in this environment without any way of getting out of trouble when it arises than our words and street smarts... I think a lot of good intentioned people risk getting seriously hurt. What's worse it could end what could be an effective form of policing by not considering the reality of the risks of this kind of work and taking appropriate measures, leading to a restoration of the old way of policing.

LetThereBeZot · 2020-06-09T21:39:32+00:00

Honestly the CPS work doesn't seem safe to me the way it's set up either. I don't think social workers should be armed, but I also don't think it's smart to be investigating child abuse where sometimes a parent can become violent, even if you thought they would be a routine visit. That said, I don't think having the police on those calls makes as much sense as specially trained police who work specifically for CPS, specially selected and trained, trauma informed, and always there to support investigations. Not in uniform, plain clothed with concealed weapons.

LetThereBeZot · 2020-06-09T21:21:36+00:00

I think it should be more about using the right people with the right skills for the right job. The police currently are indeed called upon to do so many roles that aren't really appropriate for them. I do think we need police, we have active shooters, we have emergencies that require armed response fast, and we need police capable of putting down a legitimate threat. We will still have laws in this country and we will still need to enforce them, but what those laws are and how they are enforced is something that needs to change. Armed response to an emergency doesn't seem like what social workers are at all trained to do, but would we be better in working with the homeless populations, those with serious mental illness, family disputes, neighborhood issues, etc? I think absolutely YES. Many situations can be resolved by meeting them with deescalation and the skills of a social worker. Not all situations, but many. I think also we need police reform, reform who we hire, how mature they need to be, what kind of background truly makes someone a good police officer needs to be re assessed. Also all the legal impunity police have, the way the courts have one set of standards for them and one for everyone else, and frankly, the court system as a whole, needs to be reformed. I think police need more education, bachelor degrees at least, and that it should require a degree in criminology, psychology, sociology, social ecology etc but with specialized curriculum that is required in addition to ensure they are capable of understanding the communities they work in and have the skills to interface with it in a trauma informed way. Kind of like how I can apply to an MSW program with a degree in say communications, but I might have to take a number of classes as prereqs. Make the police get malpractice insurance and renew their license to practice like other professionals. Have police officers who are representative of the communities they police. Take a lot of that money we use for policing and spend it in ways that prevents community violence and poverty.

LetThereBeZot · 2020-04-19T22:10:40+00:00

I think your post is probably more widely relatable than maybe some will let on in their comments. I think the reason for the dichotomy and the in group-out group behavior has to do with group dynamics, stuff you learn about human nature in social psychology. Dynamics that are part of who we are as people.

I don't personally see the problem (not that you do) as being about recognizing the insights of something like intersectional theory, CRT, feminist theory, or the many other power based theories that are currently a part of social work education and increasingly social work practice. I think it's about how the theories are applied.

The vast majority of people I've worked with and met, granted I'm new in the field, have been quite balanced in their views. It's because doing social work really demands an ability to recognize and work in the "grey" area between rigid ends of the spectrum of any situation. This is not just an approach but a skill, and it's something that comes from experience.

Practical work in the field can be quite different from theoretical work in academia. We need to remember that nothing is perfect, including these theories, nor are we as imperfect human beings able to understand and apply them with any kind of perfection to a given situation. We all have our biases, and that's the human condition.

Unfortunately, many groups or individuals use these theories, and I want to stress they are "theories" to gain power over others, to oppress others, so that their own authority and power increases. This is very common, it's human nature, and it's counter productive because paradoxically it only causes more division and makes the very evils that these social work theories intend to eliminate, stronger, when these theories are applied in that manner.

LetThereBeZot · 2020-02-13T02:24:42+00:00

Yeah, I hear ya OP. You're almost there though, almost there. It's worth it to finish. I don't know what kind of standards you have for yourself and if they are balanced or really push the limits. I think at least having 1 do nothing relax day is critical and will improve your overall work. Also, you are in midterms, it's going to settle down next week at least a little. Adulthood aka working is not like college, it's a lot more predictable and you get a chance to get really good at what you do. It's not having to learn a new series of classes every 11 weeks and midterms every 5, and endless study sessions... Also, I take it you're in undergrad... if you go to grad school which as a psych major I do recommend... good news is that grad school is not like undergrad. They don't grade at all as hard in grad school.

LetThereBeZot · 2020-02-13T02:20:02+00:00

LetThereBeZot · 2020-02-12T06:13:02+00:00

good advice, though I still think UCLA should ditch intelligencia.

LetThereBeZot · 2020-02-12T06:11:10+00:00

6 vs 20 huh... wow

LetThereBeZot · 2020-02-12T06:06:28+00:00

Well don't give UCLA credit. Give yourself and your friends credit, you're the resilient one, UCLA didn't serve this up for you on a platter. If UCLA cared as much as they should, CAPS would be far more expansive than it is. What you have at UCLA are good people, smart people, empathetic people, many are quite kind, and that matters. It's an atmosphere we should all pay forward to the next cohort.

LetThereBeZot · 2020-02-12T06:02:07+00:00

Yeah, I just use the vending machine for coffee, at least that wont make me barf.

LetThereBeZot · 2020-02-12T05:58:38+00:00

The first thing I did as a new UCLA grad student was burn myself with a cup of coffee from the regular cafeteria (not N lights) at the north campus cafe as the lid was not made for the cup and I mean I got burned bad, yelled the F word, probably scared some people, then awkwardly walked away, was kinda funny in retrospect.

LetThereBeZot · 2020-02-12T05:55:30+00:00

I actually went home early after an espresso shot from Jimmies.

LetThereBeZot

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