INSTRUCTOR: Motivation can be really critical. What I try to do through the course of my class is, find out what your interests are. Find out what your goals are. See if they intersect. And then try and focus you in a direction that I know that there might be employment for you in the future.

So I ask the 20 questions. Do you want to work in the field or in an office? Do you want to work only a Monday through Friday, 9:00 to 5:00? Or do you want to be on a flex schedule that you could be working night shifts for two years? Do you want to wear a uniform or your own clothes? Do you want to work with numbers in a cubicle or do you want to work with people? If you want to work with people, it gets really complex. Law abiding citizens or folks who've not been convicted of anything, or do you want to work with the offender population? Do you want to work with the victim population? If you're looking at offenders, do you want to work with adults, juveniles, men, women, the elderly, the disabled, the mentally disabled?

So really, we can hone this down to particular sub-fields that you're interested in. If you're a people person, we'll send you down one avenue. If you're a numbers kind of person, we have jobs for you. What I do tell students though is, most of the time you go into criminal justice, criminology, and forensics-- not to get rich. It's not the profession. If that's the goal, then you really need to think why you're here.

Our students are attracted by the desire to understand a particular type of behavior or to make the world a better place or to make it safer or something has happened to them in the past and they want to make sure nobody ever has to go through that again. So there's a wide variety of reasons for being here. And so, we will try and find what drives your passion and really direct you in the appropriate way.