By NATALIE MITTS
The college sophomore sat crying desperately in her adviser’s office. After exploring three majors, she was lost.
“I just want to help people,” she cried.
The adviser suggested she explore social work. She did, and that was that. She had a plan.
“It was perfect for what I wanted to do,” she said. “I wanted to go to work every day promoting other people. I just didn’t know how to do it.”
Nearly two years later, Kaitlin Brigman has become a confident woman, passionate about her field of study. The senior from Lawrence, Kan., just transferred from the University of Kansas and said she is excited to try out BYU’s school of social work.
“No one goes into social work halfway,” she said. “It’s one of those fields where they care about what they do and are really passionate.”
Through her education thus far, Brigman said she has learned much about the world around her.
“I’ve had exposure to populations I hadn’t really looked at or explored before,” she said.
She volunteered for a year at Women’s Transitional Care Services in Lawrence, Kan., mostly working with children who were victims of domestic violence.
“When I volunteered at the shelter, it didn’t feel like work,” she said. “I’m excited to actually go to a job that I enjoy.”
Brigman said she feels she has a purpose in this field.
“I don’t go there to make a name for myself,” she said. “It’s for other people. I am giving them a chance that they wouldn’t have had otherwise.”
After graduation, she said she would like to work with women who suffer from eating disorders.
“It’s one of the biggest handicaps on women today even though we’ve gone through several liberation movements,” she said.”…It’s unfair to expect a wome to be everything — a mom, a career woman, a supermodel.”
Brigman wants to show women they don’t have to be thin to be successful.
“I want to help women see they are beautiful the way they are because of their accomplishments not because they can fit into a size 00 jean,” she said.
She said she is also excited that so many clinics and juvenile centers in Utah Valley have positions available to students.
“There are a lot more job opportunities here in a social work setting than there were in Lawrence,” she said.
Although she plans on working for only a few years after graduation, Brigman said she believes her education and experience will help her in her next role as a mother.
“I can still be a mom and incorporate those ideas,” she said. “I want my kids to have empathy for someone who is struggling, to have a desire to help someone who is less fortunate.”
Her husband, Bobby, said his wife’s love of service is one of the things he likes most about her.
“I like the fact that she has such a desire to make other people’s lives better,” he said. “Being able to help other people makes her happier.”
Brigman’s classmate in the social welfare program at KU, Cindy Heilman, said Brigman was not shy about her passion for helping women, is full of compassion and is smart as well.
“She’s going to change the world somehow,” Heilman said.
