Opportunities with the Criminal Justice Club

BY VICTORIA, PANTHER BLOGGER

The Criminal Justice Club offers many opportunities for Criminal Justice majors and minors to gain experience and learn more about the different careers in the field. For example, when the club attends national or regional conventions, members are given opportunities to have ride-alongs with police officers, participate in mock crime scene investigations, and meet some very influential professionals within the criminal justice field.

The connections that club members like me make with the field professionals give us an upper edge in getting employed in the field after we finish our education. We can meet FBI agents, police officers, crime scene investigators, and many other members in the field at these conferences. We learn first-hand about the aspects of each of these jobs so that we can be more educated in making our career choice. Meeting these professionals and hearing what they had to say about their occupations has helped me to narrow down my choices in deciding what I want to do within the criminal justice system.

If it were not for the Criminal Justice Club, I would not have learned as much about the different career paths within the field as I know now. The club fundraises throughout the year in order to obtain money to attend the conventions, which help members gain experience and knowledge that cannot be merely learned in a classroom. The conventions also give me the opportunity to travel to different parts of the country. So far, I have visited Nashville, Tennessee and New Haven, Connecticut with the club. During these trips, we have visited the University of Yale, the Mississippi River, and many other places. The club’s convention trips are an all-around great and beneficial experience!