police officers

BIGeastBEAST
Wed, 11 Aug 2010 20:16:25 +0000

Like, no it won’t - totally, for sure - ya know, right?

Police departments care nothing about your degree, other than you have one and it’s accredited.

Whether you graduate from a school in the top 10% or the bottom 10%, they care very little either way. A Harvard grad wouldn’t stand any better chance than a grad from State University of Timbucktoo.

Your major is also very irrelevant. Sociology is fine, but so is basket-weaving and underwater basket-weaving. The top majors to have (if they cared) would be Accounting and Computer Science.

Very few (I’d say 5%) of police departments require a Bachelors Degree. Most just require an Associates Degree or 60 college credits, many have no educational requirement beyond HS and others will waive their educational requirements in exchange for military experience. Federal LE agencies all require a colleged degree, with the exception of DEA (which basically only hires TFO’s without degrees, which is why they changed the requirement).

Your major won’t help you in your career, at least not in terms of job performance and promotion. A degree is a degree in this field, anyone who has one is eligible to take the tests for higher rank. Promotion is based on performance, timing and sometimes connections.

I’d prefer an applicant with military experience over a Sociology major ANY DAY!

If you are concerned about making yourself more marketable to agencies, go join the Reserves or the National Guard. That experience combined with a college degree (in anything) will make you an attractive applicant.

However, I must say, the most important qualities to have are 1) Meeting the minimum requirements, 2) Doing well in your panel interview, 3) Having a clean personal history and successfully pass a background investigation.

Of course, you then also need to pass the physical requirements (they differ, but usually 1.5 mile run, bench press or pushups, situps, 300 yard spirit), and a polygraph test.

Your education will be mentioned once during the entire process, during the application. It will say, “Please list your highest level of education”, you will then list your Bachelors degree and it will never be asked of, or mentioned again - besides possibly when they are verifying it during your background investigation.

BTW, if you mention that your degree is from a 10% school, the panel/BI will say, “Wow, that’s fantastic - good for you!”, Then laugh at you as soon as you leave the room.