ecpd402 said:
If I can put my 2 cents in. Yes most great police officers don't have a degree. But a Police Officer is a professional job. Most individuals in professional jobs have degrees. In the FBI the majority of agents have degrees.
FBI is sort of a different ball game - in fact, you can't even enter now unless you have a degree.
They require:
a) any 4 year degree plus 3 years full time work experience
b) law degree
c) computer science degree or CCNP/CCIE
d) accounting degree/finance degree and qualified to become a CPA
e) any 4 year degree plus foreign language proficiency in a critical area (Arabic, Farsi, Pashtu, Urdu, Chinese [all dialects], Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish, and Vietnamese)
Don't forget, they are getting people to fill specific investigative areas and NEED those critical skills on top of everything else.
Anyway - I think I'm with everyone else on the degree issue. You certainly should NOT need one to be a PO. I've met some pretty stupid PO's who have been to college and some outstanding PO's who haven't. Having a degree does not make you more intelligent than someone without one!
-Eric