Minor in CJ major in accounting. Go get a fed job.

I got an AAS from a community college for police science. Lots of hands on stuff that prepares you for the academy and working pushing a squad car. I then went right in and got a BA in CJ. Glad I got the AAS but, looking back I would get a different BA than CJ.

Looking back I would do about 10 years as a "cop" then fed. The agencies CPD Sig suggested are good.

i agree. A Criminal justice degree is near useless. Do a minor in that and a major in something useful in life like business management or similar. I have 3 friends with Bachelors in Criminal Justice. None of them work in LEO, and none of them use their degrees for their job. They are a Yacht Captain, a manager of a service department at a boat dealer, and the other is a car salesman.

Tell her to get a degree in something else that she can be employed in if she leaves LE.

Accounting, Computer science, nursing, whatever.

quote:

Originally posted by car541:
Tell her to get a degree in something else that she can be employed in if she leaves LE.

Accounting, Computer science, nursing, whatever.

Yep. Since many agencies have assistance programs to assist with college she should work LE while using that assistance to get her masters... then she can always teach.

All of the above. The only people I ever got good information from in college were former cops. College CJ books must be written by the same idiots who write movie scripts. It's all bullshit and part of the reason many members of the public are so clueless about the job.

Minor in LE and major in business or something else useful.

Two quick points to make. For the record I am not LE but am a firefighter.

Recently, we met a hometown friend of my fiance's who did pursue a degree in CJ and does not use it at all. She said looking back that she would have rather down something like physics as her interest was in ballistics, and the CJ degree didn't help with that.

Second point is I would strongly encourage an explorer program if one exists near you. I personally am an advisor for my department and our police department has their own program as well. These programs are designed to introduce youth to future career possibilities and to important skills and concepts like problem solving, working on a team and professionalism to name a few. There are no guarantees you will get that experience in school these days. Participants can be up to 21 years old so it is not just limited to students in High School.

I'll offer a slight twist on the advice already given.

I always recommend people pursue something that interests them, both in college and in work. The particulars of the degree, and work, are often much less important than showing success in those pursuits.

If the person is truly interested in what they're doing they'll be motivated to do well, and nothing breeds success like past success. A proven track record of high performance in school, and work, speaks volumes about an applicant, in any field, and will make that applicant look like a good bet for future success.

Also, have a backup plan. Great people get knocked out of LE hiring all the time, for all kinds of reasons. Even if someone is ultimately successful in getting into LE, it can sometimes take years to get hired. I had been (wrongly) told that once in fed LE, moving to another agency was quick/easy. When I was already an agent, and applied to my "dream job," it was almost three years from the day I applied to the day I started at the new job, and it wasn't "easy."

Do NOT follow an academic or career path, simply because it is the current hot topic for one, or even many, LE agencies. For example, if a person is truly interested in Engineering, great, get a BS in engineering. However, don't do it just because it might make you stand out to some LE agency, because a) if you aren't really interested in it you won't do as well, and b) you've wasted a lot of time in something you don't really have an interest in if you ultimately don't get hired in LE. That's advice from someone with a very low undergrad GPA, because I got an engineering degree I didn't want, simply because that's what the military would pay for, and I didn't really like it. I was only motivated to do well enough to get grades that would keep my ROTC scholarship. I think I would have been more motivated getting a business, psychology, or history degree.

Same with the advice to go to law school. Why endure taking the LSAT, drop six figures getting a JD, torture yourself studying for and taking the bar exam, if you don't actually have an interest in being an attorney?

Real world example: Years ago I met a girl who wanted to be an FBI agent, and was in her second year of law school. She had been (wrongly ) told that she needed to be either a lawyer or accountant to be an FBI Special Agent. She had gone to law school solely for the purpose of applying to the FBI, and finally passed the bar. She called the local FBI office about applying, and was told she need to practice law for 3 years prior to applying. She was able to get a job as an attorney, and started grinding away. As she approached 3 years of experience, she again contacted the local FBI office. They said go ahead and apply, but they were currently "fat" on lawyers, and were aggressively hiring in other areas. When I lost touch with her she had been grinding away as lawyer for over six years, and had not been hired by the FBI, or any other LE agency. I know she was unhappy actually working as attorney, and don't know if she ever got an LE job.

Those scenarios could play out for any of the recommended paths you've seen recommended here. Engineering, IT, Accounting, etc.

I suggest that she pursue something she's interested in, but also leaves options open. I am fortunate to work with local and fed LEOs who have a wide range of academic and work backgrounds. Everything from former school teachers, insurance salesmen, prior military, etc to people who got into LE straight out of school, and again with very diverse academic backgrounds.

There is no "guaranteed path" to an LE job. Just work hard, show success in both academics and any jobs you have, and apply when there are openings. Just like any other profession.

Good luck to your daughter.

quote:

Originally posted by enidpd804:
College CJ books must be written by the same idiots who write movie scripts. It's all bullshit and part of the reason many members of the public are so clueless about the job.

I missed this yesterday. The problem is so many people writing those books are PhDs, who have spent their careers in academia, and have no real world experience in criminal justice.

The same was true in my undergrad. I would take engineering classes from professors who were known to be "harder" on students, if they had actually worked as engineers. I avoided, like the plague, any professor who had only been in academia, even if they had a rep as an "easy grader." Despite my lack of motivation to be in engineering, I figured I'd actually like to learn something useful, and the "ivory tower" crowd rarely had anything useful to pass on.

quote:

Originally posted by DMF:
I always recommend people pursue something that interests them, both in college and in work. The particulars of the degree, and work, are often much less important than showing success in those pursuits.

If the person is truly interested in what they're doing they'll be motivated to do well, and nothing breeds success like past success. A proven track record of high performance in school, and work, speaks volumes about an applicant, in any field, and will make that applicant look like a good bet for future success.

Also, have a backup plan.

Excellent advice for anyone contemplating their future career and education path, regardless of endeavor.

A huge thank you to everyone for posting! It has given my daughter a lot of great information and a lot of good advice.

quote:

Originally posted by DMF:
I'll offer a slight twist on the advice already given.

I always recommend people pursue something that interests them, both in college and in work. The particulars of the degree, and work, are often much less important than showing success in those pursuits.

If the person is truly interested in what they're doing they'll be motivated to do well, and nothing breeds success like past success. A proven track record of high performance in school, and work, speaks volumes about an applicant, in any field, and will make that applicant look like a good bet for future success.

This is a much more succinct and eloquent version of the point I was trying to make. I have found this to be true not only for myself, but also for the people I hire at work. DMF's post and advice are excellent guidelines, in my opinion.

Retired LEO here with CJ degree. I would recommend against it also. I would suggest a degree in business or government administration as being more useful.

In our agency (county sheriff's department), a CJ degree will get you a bump in pay, but what gets you hired is background and interview skills.

What I've heard from most of the guys is that the Bachelors degree is good for moving up to state or federal level jobs after you get some street experience.

quote:

Originally posted by detroit192:
Out of curiosity what does anyone think about the Explorers Programs? Does your agency have one? Does it help or hinder the participants?

I was one. I was later the post advisor for the program at my first "real" job.

Much depends on how the individual agency administers the program, and what they allow/encourage Explorers to do. I rode with sworn officers-- the fun stuff-- but also helped out with whatever I could even if it wasn't particularly sexy (helping with evidence/property inventory, pawn tickets, data entry... things that freed up the detectives to do actual detective stuff.)

That was almost thirty years ago, and things have changed-- liability terror-- but it's still possible to run a functional program that gives kids decent insight into what the job might involve, and either makes them good future supporters or gives them a good collection of things to talk about at oral boards. Knowing cops who could/would say good things about me helped when I was an applicant.

I got hired at 19. In retrospect, many of the officers when I was an explorer were only eight or ten years older than me, and our careers overlapped in many cases by twenty or more. I still have friends from those days, both the "old" officers and the kids who were in the program with me.

quote:

Originally posted by Todd Huffman:
In our agency (county sheriff's department), a CJ degree will get you a bump in pay, but what gets you hired is background and interview skills.

Is that specific to a CJ degree, or does any BS or BA get a bump in pay?

Op. There is a lot of tremendous advice here already regarding degrees and post LE usefulness. Heed that well. A CJ minor would be a good thing to have and to wet the appetite so to speak.

One thing no one has touched on so far is the oral board part of the hiring process. Having been on both sides of it myself, I was shocked at how many job applicants could not acquit themselves well under the pressure of a hiring oral board. The board members I sat with all considered ourselves very fair and open minded too. Some people were just so bad, the sunk themselves. Ask your daughter to check with a local college that operates a police academy and see if they offer a course on taking an oral board exam. One of the local ones around here did. It was an 8 hour in service training course if I remember right and the guys that took it raved about it.

Other than that, tell her good luck from me.