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Daughter graduating with bio Chem degree. She is a certified Phlebotomist and certified Nj EMT. Was going on to Nurse Practitioner but feels being a policewoman would give her a platform to make a difference in the world. Any advice where to start this pathway
Daughter graduating with bio Chem degree. She is a certified Phlebotomist and certified Nj EMT. Was going on to Nurse Practitioner but feels being a policewoman would give her a platform to make a difference in the world. Any advice where to start this pathway
Any relatives/friends working at police? Would be good to consult/ask them?
Given her present professional qualifications...She should be looking at applying to the State forensic laboratory, as a technician. That is going to pay more , have better benefits, and probably no shift work. No outside working in the weather, in the dark and on stat holidays.
Her current professional education and experience are going to be wasted if she becomes a street cop. The Police academy courses are going to put her to sleep. Most Police services insist that a new hire do at least a few years working the street, before they get a shot at a promotion. They are a quasi military organisation, with a strong promotion ladder that you have to climb.
If she is hired by a state or city forensics lab, she will be working with educated professionals. And she will be encouraged to further her scientific knowledge. Picking up drunks and enforcing traffic laws are a needed part of Police work...but that would be a terrible waste of her post secondary education.
In some smaller Police services, her degree might be a higher qualification than what an elected Sheriff might have.
she would be making a difference for the better as a medical practitioner. as a "policewoman" she would be enforcing the crown's laws and abusing people's rights.
I don't know if you can really tell adult children what to do in terms of their careers. She should just do what we all do--she can start police academy and see if she's interested and go from there. If it's not what she pictured, well she already has a degree and will have other options. My brother in law just did a mid career job change from a high school teacher to state highway patrol. He loves it.
Given her present professional qualifications...She should be looking at applying to the State forensic laboratory, as a technician. That is going to pay more , have better benefits, and probably no shift work. No outside working in the weather, in the dark and on stat holidays.
Her current professional education and experience are going to be wasted if she becomes a street cop. The Police academy courses are going to put her to sleep. Most Police services insist that a new hire do at least a few years working the street, before they get a shot at a promotion. They are a quasi military organisation, with a strong promotion ladder that you have to climb.
If she is hired by a state or city forensics lab, she will be working with educated professionals. And she will be encouraged to further her scientific knowledge. Picking up drunks and enforcing traffic laws are a needed part of Police work...but that would be a terrible waste of her post secondary education.
In some smaller Police services, her degree might be a higher qualification than what an elected Sheriff might have.
^^OP, this sounds like pretty solid advice to me.
Also agree with Annikan that you can't force your daughter to do (or not do) anything with her career (if she has any regrets later in life, she'll just blame you), BUT I would strongly counsel her to be very careful, and to think long & hard, about "wanting to make a difference in the world" being a primary driver for picking a career. If she is overly idealistic and/or doesn't have insight into the day-to-day realities of a profession, she is just setting herself up for disappointment.
I have a handful of friends who went into teaching because they thought they were going to save the world, somehow, one student at a time. They thought the classroom would be like Dead Poet's Society. I had friends telling me stories about getting cursed at and even physically assaulted by students, about having to buy school supplies for the entire classroom, about having to deal with administrative politics, and with irate parents who would blame them for any- and everything.
If your daughter thinks that being a LEO is gonna be like Law & Order SVU, or like in those local feel-good news stories featuring a cop with a heart of gold sharing a heart-swelling moment with an awe-struck and profusely grateful member of the public...have her talk to actual cops, or point her to this thread, where just 5 posts in, cops are referred to as abusers of people's rights.
Loving all the comments /advice. ..She's just came to me the other day with this discussion. ..She is deciding this on her own. ..My husband and I r here to support her in every way she can. ..in an ideal world she would probably continue on to be a doctor. ..She's weighing her options the world is her oyster
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