“You were a software engineer?”
“Yes.”
“Why would you… why are you switching to human services?”
If I’m being perfectly honest, the reason I decided to leave design and dev and marketing was that I often felt like I was trading my soul to make someone else’s money. Also, it wasn’t particularly challenging for me to help wealthy people become wealthier behind the illusion of teamwork.
Nevertheless, the question hit me right in the social justice rage button next to my heart.
Human service workers who provide direct care are treated with about the same vocational respect as janitors and baristas. The human services degree at Quinsigamond Community College is designed to get people trained and ready to work immediately in direct care or drug counseling. Students who are considering social work or clinical counseling are often encouraged to major in Psychology before transferring to a four year school.
Which means that they were really asking me, “How could you possibly find value in work that’s beneath you?”
An annoying, but not stupid, question I can never seem to answer
What truly bothered me, though, was that I didn’t know how to answer the question. Answering it in any way would legitimize its premise that the work is beneath anyone, let alone me. Getting on my soap box would alienate people with the power to tank my grade point average.
I’ve tried to contextualize it for people in so many ways. I grew up in foster care, so I feel a natural pull to improve the system I grew up in and help others going through what I went through. I’m disillusioned by for-profit work in a world where the KKK no longer feels the need to hide. I felt the most satisfied after the work I did for nonprofits and NGOs. I believe everyone should be required to spend at least 7 cumulative years of their career serving in direct care and civil service, myself included.
I can’t escape it
Somehow, it’s still not enough. I still always end up getting the raised eyebrow. It’s infuriating. Maybe not as infuriating as it was for me to end up back in the world of moral philosophy and superheroes again.
At the beginning of my second year I registered for the honors section of Composition II. I don’t know what I was expecting. I hadn’t read the syllabus. I definitely was not expecting the course to be covering Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’s 1987 graphic novel Watchmen. I was also not expecting the professor to be getting deep into moral and existential philosophy as a means of teaching close reading.
This Facebook post will sum up how I felt after my first class:
Amy Coleman
September 11 • 
I was two semesters away from graduating from Harvard Extension School about ten years ago. Then my life kind of blew up and got super messy. Not like it wasn’t before, but it just, oof. Really, really messy.
I had only transferred in 6 credits and was too afraid / anxious / chaotic to apply for scholarships. So I was paying for full Harvard tuition. It’s not cheap, people. Now that I had to start over, I decided, fuck it, I’m not paying that again. Especially since tuition has doubled since I last attended.
Last fall I started taking courses at Quinsigamond Community College. I’m in the Human Services degree program. I’m now a member of the Phi Theta Kappa and Psi Beta honors societies, and a Commonwealth Honors Scholar. I’m also a research associate this semester. I have my graduation regalia coming in soon, because I graduate this upcoming May. And I’m really proud of everything I’m doing this time around. Stuff I couldn’t do before because my life was just absolutely insane. New leaf, new me, new drive, new ambition, new capacity. I’m living my best nerd life and leaving the past in the past.
I took about 8 courses with professor Christopher Robichaud at HES. So many that it could almost have been a major in and of itself. What can I say? I really enjoyed his lectures. And you know. I’m a huge effing nerd. But this time around, I decided I’m going to really diversify my professors. Get some unique perspectives and views. Leave the superheroes and morality in my past and find new ways to engage in my course materials.
So tell me why I walk into my English 102 honors section class this morning to see that today’s lecture was going to be about a couple of pieces from Superheroes and Philosophy by Tim Morris. Including the piece on Spider-Man by Robichaud. I was a late add to the course and hadn’t seen the syllabus yet… and found out the whole course is writing about Watchmen and moral philosophy.
I cannot escape it. I cannot effing escape it.
I can be infuriating, too
My new professor was similarly dismayed to have a student in the class who could quickly and easily grapple with the philosophical material. A few lectures later he admitted, “You destroyed my lesson so quickly the first time you came to class I had to vent to my wife about it that night.”
I had to channel my exuberance somewhere else, though. As we went chapter by chapter, I saw how many times one of the characters looked like they were lost in deep thought and contemplation about why they did anything. Then the professor “proved” determinism using Einstein’s theory of relativity. I use quotation marks not to disparage his lesson, but because I know he was really just trying to depress us.
Quick aside: What is it with moral philosophy professors trying to antagonize and depress their students? And why do I keep taking classes with them? Is this some kind of weird pedagogical trauma bond mechanism?
Back to my point. Me being me, I decided that I needed to answer the question that has been annoying me for the last two years.
Why am I getting into human services?
I know the answer, ultimately, is just that I fucking want to. I have a long term plan, and providing direct care is a part of it. It’s absurd to me that just wanting to do something isn’t enough in a country that claims to value freedom. But I’ve been trying really hard to be less reactive and judgmental, and this seems like the perfect time to practice.
So for the next twelve weeks, I’ll be using Watchmen to explore different philosophical approaches for answering that question. I’ll cover a wide span of philosophical theory: deontology, utilitarianism, consequentialism, determinism, cynicism, nihilism, systemic power, trauma, origin stories, intent versus impact, existentialism, moral self indulgence, and moral particularism.
I still might not be able to give anyone a compelling reason for why I’m doing this when I’m done, but I’ll have a lot of fun trying. And if you love witnessing a good train wreck, then follow the series each week to see where this ends up.
