Which universities, in your knowledge, have the best psychology and criminal justice studies programs?
I plan to double major with these, so any information regarding those programs would be great!
The cheapest one.
What are your future plans? These are two areas that you need to come out as close to debt free as possible.
Criminal Justice programs often share departments with Sociology, as research in criminology overlaps a lot more with sociology than with psych. (Population-level and social-context factors being far bigger drivers of criminality than individual psychology.) For example: https://sociology.osu.edu/undergraduate-program/explore-sociology
Traditional Criminal Justice major programs can be somewhat professionally limiting unless your goal is to work as a probation officer or similar. To have more upward mobility in law enforcement, FBI/CIA, etc. it’s helpful to have a stronger quantitative skill-set. Take a look, for example, at the Justice Informatics concentration at Drexel http://drexel.edu/coas/academics/undergraduate-programs/criminology-and-justice-studies/ This program also has the advantage of interesting co-op placements. Adding a minor is encouraged/expected, so minoring in psych would be very doable, and maybe double-majoring if you’re motivated and have a lot of AP credits.
@aquapt @Eeyore123 I would like to become a profiler of sorts? So a university that has forensic psychology or criminology would be best, but those colleges are few and far between. I don’t have as much of a passion for sociology as psychology, so is it a bad idea for me to double major in criminal justice and psychology instead of sociology?
As to the AP credits, how many is a lot? My high school doesn’t offer AP Psych unfortunately, so I wouldn’t be able to take it. However, I did take the psychology and sociology classes available to me. At the end of next school year (my senior year) I will have taken six AP credits, all but one that my school offers.
Honestly every school has Psychology…I would look hard at your State Colleges/Universities.
I want to be an FBI “Profiler.” Where do I begin the application process?
The FBI does not have a job called “Profiler.” Supervisory Special Agents assigned to the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC) at Quantico, VA, perform the tasks commonly associated with “profiling.” Despite some popular depictions, these FBI Special Agents do not get “vibes” or experience “psychic flashes” while walking around fresh crime scenes. In reality, it is an exciting world of investigation and research — a world of inductive and deductive reasoning, crime-solving experience and knowledge of criminal behavior, facts, and statistical probabilities.
Go on LinkedIn and search on “Supervisory Special Agent Behavioral Analysis Unit-2” and see where people who have this job went to college and what they majored in. Just checking a couple it seemed that they went to State Us and then got a Masters degree.
I have a friend who double majored in these at University of Richmond, and loved her experience.
You can also find these detective positions on elite state police forces and the large city departments. NYC LA etc. schools that educate police such as John jay in nyc. Roger Williams in Rhode Island. Suffolk in Boston. All have majors that would appeal to you.
And state police and high profile urban forces pay much better than the fbi.
And becoming a state trooper in mass Connecticut and Rhode Island is very difficult. And a degree is almost always needed these days to cut through to become a finalist
And the pay is really high relatively speaking. I think in mass dozens make more than the governor. In Rhode Island it’s a very elite position.