![\"Graduation](\"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Graduation-Cap_blue-500x500-e1586882554282.png\")
<\/a>CELEBRATING SUCCESS: UToledo recognizes the Class of 2021 with a series of stories featuring students receiving their degrees at\u00a0fall commencement<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n Wegert changed her major \u2014 and school \u2014 to focus on social work, a field where she can guide others through life\u2019s challenges.<\/p>\n \u201cThe education system has a lot of power over people\u2019s lives,\u201d she said. \u201cI realized that I don\u2019t want to teach them math with all these big deals going on around them. I want to care about the big deals and help people with the larger things and the more personal things in life.\u201d<\/p>\n Wegert, a 21-year-old Elmore native, transferred to UToledo, allowing her to commute from home and join friends who were fellow Rockets. For Wegert, UToledo was welcoming, accessible and provided a small-college feel but with large-college resources.<\/p>\n She will receive her bachelor\u2019s degree in social work at the Dec. 18 Commencement.<\/p>\n Wegert completed her senior-year internship with UToledo\u2019s Catharine S. Eberly Center for Women. She became interested in the work of the Eberly Center after attending a Title IX training session during her junior year. She knew the center would be perfect for her internship \u2014 fueling her curiosity while expanding her social work experience aside from casework.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the biggest things I worked on was our woman of the week highlight,\u201d Wegert said. \u201cEvery week, I talked with many women around campus who people nominated. That turned into woman of the year. I also worked with a lot of different programming types and evaluated them to see if they were helping people.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, she\u2019s wrapping up her third and final semester at the Eberly Center, this time as a student ambassador. Wegert focused her time on outreach and growing connections with organizations to increase the awareness of the Eberly Center\u2019s programming.<\/p>\n Her time with the Eberly Center provided Wegert with more than a firsthand look into her future field. She grew her personal and professional connections with the staff in the center \u2014 especially Danielle Lutman, program manager for gender equity student initiatives.<\/p>\n Wegert<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cShe\u2019s an awesome role model, feminist and social worker who is always trying to better herself and the people, environments and communities around her,\u201d Wegert said. \u201cI\u2019ve definitely found myself going to her for advice the most.\u201d<\/p>\n Lutman is proud of the growth Wegert has made during her year and a half working with the Eberly Center.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has been incredible to watch Emily\u2019s growth as a student and a leader,\u201d Lutman said. \u201cHer passion for learning and making the world a better place is inspiring. I can\u2019t wait to watch all the amazing things she does in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n On top of her work with the Eberly Center, Wegert also is a member of Pi Beta Phi and helped with a student-led pre-health seminar series that educated students on disparities in the medical field.<\/p>\n Thanks to her time at the Eberly Center, Wegert is more than ready for the next step \u2014 graduate school.<\/p>\n And while she continues to narrow her choices of potential career paths, no matter what she does, UToledo\u2019s social work program prepared her to turn passions into knowledge.<\/p>\n \u201cThey make sure each of their students are well rounded in the things that they care about,\u201d Wegert said. \u201cWe learn about many issues and where we can contribute to their improvement.\u201d<\/p>\n For now, Wegert wants to use her education and experiences to focus on sex education and reversing rape culture.<\/p>\n “I am interested\u00a0in diving deeper into the underlying, often unseen factors that play into rape culture and how to stop them on a cultural level,\u201d Wegert said. \u201cI think it is an extremely prominent and important area that is rarely discussed.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Emily Wegert changed her major \u2014 and school \u2014 to focus on social work, a field where she can guide others through life\u2019s challenges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":883,"featured_media":70689,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,60,69,1,71,7],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70685"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/883"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70685"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70687,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70685\/revisions\/70687"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/a>