Personal Narrative: A Career In Criminology

With all the jobs out there in the world, how does anyone decide what they want to do with their lives? Most of the time this is the first question young people ask themselves when they are trying to figure out what they want to major in at college. This question caused me a lot of confusion about my possible future career. The career I finally choose, like many other young adults, was law enforcement, to be a police officer. In the following paragraphs, I will describe the reasons for my choice, along with the effects that my education and training have on my goal of becoming a police officer.

My transition into high school was as easy as taking a breath. I had always found school quiet easy and I never had to put much effort into getting promising grades. Before high school I had my whole life figured out, or at least I thought I did. I had planned that I would attend a law school or major in English. After a while of being in high school I started to realize many things. My parents did not have the financial stability to send me to a law school, I was not as smart as all the other kids, little by little I began struggling with a negative mentality about myself and my future. I slowly let go of my dream of becoming a lawyer and decided to join the Health Careers Academy. Soon enough, I began to have a deep interest in the medical field but then again I continued to have the same question; how can I afford going to a medical school? I did not know much about college or what it took to get into college. I assumed I just had to have a pretty transcript and that was all it took. My self confidence began to lower as I saw how other students cruised through their high school years so effortlessly. I never wanted to ask for help because I did not want to seem “dumb”. I would bite my tongue and hold in all the unanswered questions I had. My junior year, I was having a very difficult time. I had a tight schedule which consisted of almost all AP or honors courses. I slowly began to give up because I did not believe that I could do it. I let my grades slip failing almost

My Junior Year of high school just recently started. I have learned so many different things while attending high school, and still have over a year to learn even more. As Matthew Kelly said, “whether you are sixteen or sixty, the rest of your life is ahead of you. You cannot change one moment of your past, but you can change your whole future.” This means while I have done a lot in my past, I cannot change anything that has already happened, but I am able to change my future. One of the most important things that I am involved in right now is school. My first two years at CBHS were good, and I made decent grades. Some of the grades that I made I am not very happy with now but I cannot change that so I need to focus on my grades right now because those are the ones I can change.

Major changes in my life have affected my high school career, but a large impact came from the death of my father in eighth grade. Before his passing, I was an average A/B student in middle school and even elementary school, which quickly changed in 8th grade when my classes became too hard for me to handle. I decided the best thing for my mental health was to drop out of my higher level classes. This lead to being in standard classes throughout my first year of high school with minimal effort from my part. After constantly missing school, I failed my second quarter. Instead of bouncing back from this, it pushed me down, making me believe I would never be able to recover. Without any motivation, I ended my ninth grade year with a grade point average of 1.4.

Growing up, I’d always been expected to do well in school. Which isn’t out of the ordinary, every parent wants their child to be successful and have a beneficial career. So, since good grades were what my parents expected that’s what I got. All throughout elementary, I strived to do my absolute best in every subject. At my sixth grade graduation I was awarded the Presidential Award for Academic Achievement, in my junior high years I did well as well. My eighth-grade year I achieved my goal of obtaining a 4.0 G.p.a. The first year of high school was nerve-racking but I still managed to keep my grades up. However, Sophomore year was definitely a bump in the road for me. In all my ten years of being in school (including head start and kindergarten)

On 04/18/2016 I assisted Sgt. Patterson on a traffic stop in the 900 block of East K-53 HWY, Sumner County, Kansas. When I drove past I observed an older four door passenger vehicle stopped on the north side of the road with Sgt. Patterson's patrol vehicle behind it with emergency equipment activated. I turned around of K--53 and pulled in behind Sgt. Patterson, I activated my rear emergency lights and walked to the passenger side window of Sgt. Patterson's patrol vehicle. In the vehicle he had stopped I could see two white males sitting in the front driver and passenger seats, Sgt. Patterson was already back in his vehicle and was running the occupants information with SUCO 911. Sgt. Patterson told me that the passenger was moving around

About four years ago, I was just starting my first year of high school. During my previous tenure in middle school, I was basically an average student with multiple C’s and barely passing classes. So when I entered high school, I was not that enthusiastic about it and I continued the trend of not really caring about my grades in the 9th grade. As I became more aware of the opportunities I could get by receiving good grades, I began to actually care more about school and tried to get good grades. I began to do something that I never did before,

In 7th grade I was unfocused, unprepared, and childish. I didn’t know my grades would have an impact on my high school career. I thought everything that happened in middle school stayed in middle school so I focused on useless drama. I used to blame my C’s on bad teaching but now I realize I have no one else to blame but myself. I was the one coming to school unprepared to work not my teachers. Now I know all of my grades count. I have blossomed into a person I am proud of. This year I’ve made it my mission to actually pass not just get by. I now sit promptly in the front of the class and take notes. I focus on test scores and grades not drama that’s not even going to matter next week. I now know what’s important and what I should just leave

On 11/21/2016, I, William Van Scoter, was working as a police officer for the Wichita State University Police Department, in Wichita, Sedgwick County, Kansas. I had the North Wichita Police Department (WPD) on my car radio and they were looking for a black male wearing all black clothes with red shoes. The black male was wanted for a domestic violence incident. I heard over the radio that WPD requested Officer Gable #152 to help locate the individual.

Having a black father and a white mother has always had some family members question my kinship to them. The older I got, the more my identification became reliant on one aspect of myself over the other. The African-American part of me became suspect in the eyes of certain family members with no real comprehension on my part as of why. I saw ignorance towards my whiteness, not only within society but within my own family, which resulted in the inability to perceive my blackness.

My full name is Samantha Taylor Miller, I am a criminal justice major. I am from Little Falls, New York. I currently live in North Hall with my roommate, who is also my close friend from high school. Although Little Falls is only about thirty minutes from UC, I am glad I chose to live on campus because I have met so many new people as a result of living in the resident's hall.

I currently have an Associate degree in Criminal Justice and have attended Professional Military Education (PME) courses in Security Forces Apprentice and Security Forces Leadership courses. Moreover, I was selected to attend the MWD Handler and Kennel Master/Trainer courses at Lackland Air Force Base (AFB) Texas. I have also attended the Non Commissioned Officer Academy Management Course at Petersen AFB, Colorado that enhanced leadership capabilities. Lastly, I was selected to attend Yuma Joint Forces Regional K9 Training with U.S. Marine/Navy in Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona in preparation for combat mission in

My decision to become a Criminal Justice major was not a simple one. My high school cross country coach was also a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Officer who told me that I had a very “police-like” attitude, which ignited a spark in my brain. Initially I thought it would be pretty cool to chase people down, shoot guns, and have my picture plastered on the front page of every newspaper for taking down the biggest drug cartel in the United States although my mind was still set on majoring in Athletic Training.

My academic history has been dubious over the years I have been in school. I say iffy because my grades have been all over the place if you will. One quarter I 'll A 's and B 's. The next quarter I may have A 's, B 's, and C 's. In elementary I had mostly A 's. If not then A 's and B 's. In middle school is when I started to receive C 's, but I somehow managed to receive A/B honor roll at the end of quarters. Currently I have 1 F, 1 C, a few B 's, and 3 A 's. I really need to work in Prof. Comm. because I have an F in it. My grades never have any correlation between them. The classes I have been successful in is science, technology, English, and history. I 've been successful in science because science is my favorite subject. I 've been successful in technology because I pay attention and utilize the electronics for my benefit. I 've been successful in English because I take good notes and ask questions if any. Also, I 've been successful in history because I find history really enjoyable and very interesting. The classes I have struggled in are math, and Spanish. I say math because I usually don’t remember all the formulas, equation forms, and ways to break down an equation. Also, I haven 't been successful in Spanish because I usually don’t study the material as much as

The transition from middle school to high school was difficult for me. I’d gone to very a progressive middle school where the students basically got to choose their own curriculum. I’d never had grades or a standard structure of any kind to measure my academic performance. Saint Mary’s, my high school, is college prep so the teachers move quickly, I am graded on everything, and expectations in general are much higher. For all of ninth grade I felt like I had been tossed into the deep end without knowing how to swim, and my grades reflected that mentality. Summer before tenth grade, I knew I couldn’t continue performing so poorly, so I began to study and to try and get a jump start on the next year’s curriculum. When school started I put much