Marie Marcum's path to a BSW degree took a few twists and turns, including a year spent serving in Iraq 
Marie Marcum |
March 26, 2006 - Marie Marcum’s path to a Bachelor of Social Work degree has featured a few twists and turns.
When she first arrived at Indiana University in 1998, Marcum decided to take microbiology. She had a dream of finding a cure to cancer and doing Aids Research.
Those plans had to be readjusted when she discovered that math was, well, not her forte.
So her dream of making a medical breakthrough was put on a backburner. She had planned to have a minor in psychology and decided to make that her major instead.
She had to work to afford school so sometimes Marcum had to focus on working to earn money for school.
At some point she learned of the BSW program and was intrigued. “Social Work has always been a part of my life just because of how I grew up,” Marcum said of her attraction to the becoming a social worker.
As a teenager, she had a front-seat view of the type of help social workers provide to children. She grew up in a household with an elderly parent who suffered debilitating health problems and it wasn’t unusual for the heat and electricity to be turned off. “We lived on social security, which wasn’t huge.”
Eventually, she and her three siblings placed in foster homes. “I’ve been in the system so long it was kind of ingrained into me,” Marcum said. “I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before.”
But then another one of those “twists” came up. She received a voicemail message at work from her commanding officer. Marcum was a member of the Army Reserves and she was being “involuntarily transferred to the 706th Transportation Company which was going to Iraq.
“It was just something I wanted to do,” Marcum said of her decision to join the Army when she was a junior in high school. “I went to the recruiter when I was just 17 and said I wanted in.”
“It was almost a tradition,” she said of family members who served in the military. “I knew from the age of 12 or 13 I was going into the Army,” Marcum said. “If I think about it now, it was just because I love the United States. As a kid you are full of pride.”
While Marcum had been part of a transportation unit in the Army and knew how to drive trucks, she was trained to drive big fuel tanker trucks when she arrived in Kuwait. From January of 2004 to January of 2005, she spent her days handling one of the most dangerous assignments – driving in convoys of 15 to 20 trucks.
“I got hit on my on my last convoy,” she said. “I knew it was going to happen and I told my co-driver it was going to happen.” Her co-driver had hit an explosive device the week before.
Luckily, neither she nor her co-driver were injured. The explosion “spidered my windshield beyond belief,” Marcum recalled. “It was a life changing moment right there.”
Marcum was startled for a moment by the blast and then it was back to the task at hand.
“You freaked out and then you are just like, ok, calm down and continue to drive.”
Upon her return to Bloomington, Marcum made another decision. Even though some advisors suggested that because she was so far along with her undergraduate degree in psychology that she continue with that and then get a Master of Social Work degree. But Marcum decided she wanted a BSW degree as well, “because that’s what I wanted to do.”
Marcum, who is now a lieutenant in the Army and is a member of the Indiana Army National Guard, did receive her degree in psychology last December, expects to graduate with her BSW degree in May.
What comes next remains to be seen, but Marcum knows she is interested in working on policy issues. “I am more concerned about policy that affects a number of people than providing direct services,” she explained. Its policy after all that decides who gets help and who doesn’t, she noted.
She credits her unexpected interest in policy to one of her teachers, Bruce McCallister. The class involved researching legislation and finding out impacts on the state or federal level, among other things. “I thought I can do this, this is a lot of fun,” Marcum said.
“I just think it’s the best avenue for affecting change.”
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