Forensics Colleges
It has become quite a trend to associate forensic science and criminal justice with adventure, righteousness and justice. The higher demand for specialists as well as the social awareness of the mechanisms that support the act of justice has determined many educational institutions to create programs, courses and distance learning formats dedicated to forensics. There is a large number of accredited forensics colleges that one can choose from, depending on personal focus and career objectives. Different programs will train people for different jobs. Thus, some will prepare you for crime scene investigations, others for lab work, others for data retrieval and so on.
There are two types of programs provided by forensics colleges: some for bachelors degrees and others for masters degrees. The competency is different for the two, since some of the jobs associated with criminal justice require special supplementary training and lots of years of study. DNA lab work is one such domain, and only the best candidates with a solid education in genetics, chemistry, biology and biochemistry are selected. If the candidate gets accepted at one of the forensic scientist colleges for a masters degree, but he or she lacks work experience, extra courses will be necessary.
Crime scene reconstruction, microscopy, forensic molecular biology, population statistics and pattern analysis are just a few of the programs that need to be undertaken for a masters degree with most forensics colleges. Keep in mind that skills are created in labs, and if you want to be a forensic technician for instance, you should have access to direct lab work to learn methods, techniques and the basis of the forensic procedure. This is in fact the faulty part of distance training, because people who choose programs that do not involve in-class work, will not develop the same skills. Therefore, although they are accredited, distance education formats remain questionable.
The application for forensics colleges is probably the first step towards building a career in the field of criminal justice. However, the first criterion is a perfectly clean personal record. You should have no convictions, no history of drug use or other similar problems that will get you discredited from the start. There are US states like Miami, where smokers are not allowed to train in the domain of forensics. And even if they have access to specific education, they will not be employed as long as they are addicted to nicotine. Although it seems rough, the nature of such criteria is understandable and so is their necessity.