Entry for Graduate Program - Essay Example

While undergraduate studies play an incontrovertibly intrinsic role in one’s intellectual development, graduate studies are fundamental to intellectual maturation and the realization of one’s career goals. Having successfully complete my graduate studies with a major in Criminal Justice and a minor in Psychology, I realized that while I had received a solid ground in the former, with understanding of the complexities of the criminal mind definitely supplemented by the latter, there remained a great deal of territory to be explored.

As an employed law enforcement officer with close to three years of professional experience, I know that a graduate degree will invaluably contribute to my professional development. I have worked in, and with, all of the Fishkill village Police Department, the NYPD, the NY Special Enforcement Bureau and the United States Secret Service and, can confidently assert that I have no doubts that law enforcement is my preferred career choice. While acknowledging that many before me, as shall many after me, have said this, as a law enforcement officer I feel fulfilled.

My sense of fulfillment and satisfaction come from my awareness that I am doing my part to make life in this country just a little but safer. On a personal level, while I believe that all Americans must contribute to the increased security and safety of their society, a select few, this nation’s law enforcement officers, must devote their lives to this goal. As a foreign-born American citizen, the protection of this country and all that it stands for, from crime, is especially meaningful.

It is meaningful because it represents my way of trying to give something back to this country and her people.I am fully cognizant of the fact that the United States is hardly short of law enforcement officers and realize that this is hardly an easy career. Nevertheless, after much soul-searching, I discovered that this is where my career interests lie. Certainly, one does not need a graduate degree in Criminology to be a law enforcement officer but, given the nation-wide crime rate, it is imperative that those who enter this profession law have a solid academic grounding.

Indeed, what distinguishes one law enforcement officer from another is his/her grasp of the aforementioned. It is because of my personal determination to become an effective law enforcement officer, one who can play a role in crime deterrence or reduction that I have decided to pursue a graduate degree. On a more pragmatic level, my decision is further motivated by the realization that careers in law enforcement can be short. There are no guarantees that I will not be subjected to an incident which may subsequently undermine my ability to continue in this career.

Should that happen, I have decided that I would then embark on a second career as a public prosecutor. An intimate knowledge of the law is, thus, necessary. Only a graduate degree can provide me with that.As this short essay has tried to explain, my career goals are intimately linked to the continuation of my studies. My career goals are not limited to the mere practice of law but to the acquisition of the depth of understanding and knowledge requisite for my becoming the best law enforcement officer and public prosecutor I can be.