Elizabeth Clark, Social Work student

A row of candles flicker against the backdrop of a wall of remembrance. Participants read names aloud, and glance at American flags that have been placed around the room. Solemn music plays softly in the background until survivors begin to speak, telling stories of the panic and fear that gripped them the date of 9/11/2001. When one of those survivors is finished recounting her escape from the south tower, social work student Elizabeth Clark offers her outstretched arms and a comforting embrace.

The event is the 9/11 Anniversary Commemoration that was presented by the Band of Brothers at NCC's Monroe Campus on September 7, 2011, but for Clark, the urge to comfort, to care and to help comes naturally to her every day, no matter the occasion or the location. Clark is a 21-year-old second-year student who has truly found her calling and plans to spend her life answering the call of assisting others in need.

"Hugging that survivor was an impulse for me," says Clark. "She told me afterward that people are afraid [to hug her]. We brought tears to each other's eyes. Everyone kept asking me why I did it. It just came naturally."

The life of a social worker is one that Clark -- who works for her church teaching physical education, math, English, writing and reading to young children -- has grasped onto so eagerly because she had a good mentor: her mother, who made her own career in the field. She's also found a positive mentor at NCC in the form of social work professor Hope Horowitz. Horowitz has instilled in her students that nothing will prove to be more valuable to them than getting out in the field and getting involved in community service.

"I want to do a program called America Reads, which operates in elementary schools. I want to teach kids how to read," Clark explains. "I just love helping children in general. I think that's what my career is going to be based on. I helped a child at my church who came in not knowing how to read at all. Now he's thriving in the fifth grade. I have to be in this career. I love it. I love knowing that I helped someone else succeed."

Clark has found that the coursework in the social work program teaches students about diversity, but it also teaches about the ways in which even people with many differences between them can relate to one another. The field is challenging but hands-on, which is exactly the way Clark prefers it to be.

"You have to be out there and you have to do things to help and better people, and get them back on their feet," says Clark, who plans on continuing her education. "That's the kind of person I am. I want to do this for a very long time."