When people come to UAB they think about the medical aspect of it:
'I'm going to be a doctor,' 'I'm going to be a nurse.'
One of my sorority sisters came to campus and she
wanted to be a nurse, she was so excited,
and then she got here and she found out
that that wasn't for her. Justice Sciences
was a new avenue for her.
She changed her major from nursing to criminal justice,
and she found that that's how she could best help people.
The Department of Justice Sciences has a really great internship program.
You usually get matched with somewhere that was really close to your interest in general
My sophomore year I took
Probation and Parole with Mrs.
Earwood and I've been trying to figure
out how I was going to use my degree and one day, it just clicked. She was talking
about juvenile probation and I was like: 'Okay this is this is what I want to do.
This is how I can help people.'
My internship was at Jefferson County
Family Court with the probation
department and so I got to follow
around probation officers and see what
they do every day. I got to go to court,
I got to intake sessions with new cases, I
was on high-risk caseloads so I got to
see the therapy side and something that
was really memorable about my internship
was getting to see kids that would
complete their probation and how excited
they were and the change that took place
from the time they came into the systems
until the time that they left and so it
was neat to see the impact that the
probation officer had on that child and
their life and how it really made them a
better person. There are so many
different aspects of criminal justice
you know you go into and you don't think
about research as a part of corrections
or law and so I'll always remember
the work that's involved and how that
research really helps us have a better
understanding of criminal justice and
how we can really help people so that's
what that's what I'll take with me.
