He will likely not do well as a cop. Also, he will very likely figure this out for himself after two semesters of hanging around CJ majors.
About half of all college students change their major at least once. Also, over half of all graduates aren’t working in their college major ten years after.
I have a freind who wanted to be a cop from age 5-22; literally never had any other career goal. He quit after two summers as a seasonal officer because “it was turning me into an asshole.” He has a CJ degree and works as a financial advisor.
Don’t worry about his major. DO worry about him borrowing too much and coming out with $30,000 in debt. That will be FAR more likely to limit his opportunities.
And don’t forget the even further removed career paths for criminal justice majors like probation and parole officers , child protective workers , investigator positions at various government agencies etc.
Although if he’s truly passive , he probably won’t do well at any of the jobs a criminal justice degree would be helpful for. None of them require someone to be a bully, but there’s a lot of room between bully and passive and most of them are going to require a certain level of aggressiveness- even if it’s only not immediately giving up when someone doesn’t want to answer your questions.
I didn’t realize how my attitude was changing until my (then) wife commented on how much my comments were skewing to the “just shoot the fucker” genre. I quit volunteering not long after that.
I’m going to pound you one behind the building after SDMB let’s out for posting that!
It’s not as true today as it was when I got in in '82. Also, back then you only needed a high school diploma. I went back to college part-time and got a degree in the mid 80’s but only because they paid for it and I got more pay for having a degree. Otherwise I was grandfathered.
To the OP, hope your kid realizes that for at least the first 5 years he’ll rarely have a weekend or holiday off. He’ll miss a lot of his childrens birthdays and will work night shift in the first few years. Also I could on and on about all the bullshit he’ll have to put up with.
On the plus side the pay and benefits are quite better then when I started. 3 weeks sick leave per year is standard around here. 2 weeks vacation until the 3rd year then it’s 3 weeks until year ten when it bumps to 4, 5 weeks at 20 years 6 weeks at 25. Medical insurance is insanely good.
Nice broad brush. I have not seen that at all. But then again I am in part of the country in which we successfully fought very hard for decades to make the job pay decently and be attractive to a wide range of people. Something Chris Cristie is trying hard to change. Often, you get what you pay for. On our department we have a licensed therapist, a doctor of pharmacology, several MBAs, some with their own very successful businesses and none chose the job to be a bully. Most are there to serve their community and because the pay and benefits are good.
When I was a senior in high school in '79 there were no jobs. Prior to that a guy could work in a factory and support a family but those were gone at least at the time. A lot of us joined the service after graduation. I had considered law enforcement. The local PD had recruiters on career day and if you were 18 you could test even if you didn’t have your diploma yet. I had tested for a couple of departments.
I went to college but did not pick a major. I don’t know if Criminal Justice was even available as a major yet. I had considered cinematography or social studies.
By early '82 I had dropped out of college and had a half-way decent job when one of the agencies I tested with called me up and said they were hiring and I was still on the list. By then I was married. I discussed it with my wife and decide to take the job. One of the major incentives was the “25 and out” retirement.
At the time my old man was in his 40’s and nowhere near retirement. That thought sealed the deal. One caveat was the department was in an area we did not live in and had to move there within 1 year.
I did get to retire at 47. Full pension with medical coverage for me and my wife. If the OP’s son can still get that, go for it! But a lot of agencies are changing/dropping the great retirement packages.
It varies greatly from department to department and region to region. In New Jersey college is often a requirement. Some departments are requiring college to both cut down on candidates and to raise the age of hires.
In Wisconsin one must have either an Associate Degree in police science/criminal justice, or 60 accredited college credits in something else. Kind of odd as most Associate degrees are more than 60 credits. Officers have 60 months to meet the requirements after their starting dates but most agencies won’t look at you unless you already have them.
I believe this was started circa 1993. Guys like me would have been grandfathered though I did get a degree anyway, mostly for the increase in pay.
That is state wide? Here the state controls what the curriculum must be to get certified but it is up to the individual agencies to set the prerequisites such as education level and residency.
Yep. State mandates any peace officer must have an Associate Degree or 60 college credits within 5 years of their start date. Only exemptions are elected law enforcement or those of us that graduated the academy prior to 1993.
Academy training is 2 tier also. For almost all agencies Training and Standards mandates an academy of 720 hours. The exception is “class A” agencies (Milwaukee PD, Milwaukee County Sheriff, Madison PD, Dane County Sheriff, State Patrol) for which I believe the standard is now 1040 hours.
What that means is, someone who certified in an academy at 720 hours would not be able to work in a class A agency. They would have to go through the class A academy. But a class A academy graduate like myself can work anywhere.
I would never discourage someone from getting more education.
But in my experience those of us that got promotions did so due to cronyism and performance, it that order. Both the agency I retired from and the one I’m on now are very large and I can think of nobody that got into the bureau of either because they had a bachelor degree.
True enough. But there’s no reason one can’t use the term agency in a generic sense as in “law enforcement agency’”. There are actually only a handful of feds that use the term agency in their title.
