Criminology in the Professions

Career plan for life after criminology:

This should be in three sections of around 500 words each, although it is acceptable for the word limits on these sections to be slightly different, as long as the total limit does not exceed 1500 words. The sections include an informed personal reflection entitled:

'Where am I now?’

'Where do I want to be?’ (In the short and long term if applicable).

'How will I get there’?

1500 words.

Important note:This is a proper ‘informed’ piece of academic work and means that you must use external sources to inform your discussions. Tutors expect to see a reasonable bibliography that specifically relates to your work; otherwise you will be in danger of failing this assignment. It is acceptable that many of the sources are likely to be from the internet, but you do need to make sure that you believe them to be valid.

If, for instance you want to be a teacher, then you should look at sources like the graduate teaching sites as well as government policy on Education, so that you know what you are letting yourself in for both financially, socially and politically. For teaching you also need to find out what sort of course you can do from your degree as this can be limited and you would need to identify what the courses are looking for in terms of skills, competences and experience, so that you would be successful in your application.

For all of you it is also important to look at what careers sites such as our own or the prospects website say about work or courses that you are interested in. It might be in the short term that professions are simply not recruiting at the moment, so you may need to think about planning in the short and long term, to get where you want.

Theoretical underpinnings are also important, with the best plans reflecting on things like career anchors, managerialism, organisational culture, as well as the political context of any profession. These things are all very relevant, because all careers, courses, training and other potential plans are directly affected by the socio-economic and political context of the country. Knowing this means that you can be realistic about how to achieve what you want, and what you are going to have to do to realise your ambitions.

If you haven’t got a clue what to do, or want to travel, volunteer or even start your own business, it is just as important to plan your future. So called ‘gap years’ are best when they have been planned effectively and there are lots of organisations offering help with this type of experience, but you need to be careful about which are genuine and offer you good (safe) placements, advice and support etc. Not knowing what to do is very common, in fact around a quarter of last years students, didn’t know what

Criminology in the Professions

they wanted to do. It helps however if you know where you can get information or help from, or what sort of things are actually out there. Even coming to some conclusions about what you don’t want to do is a valuable lesson learnt! Post graduate study is a good option for some people, but you will need to identify both what courses you might be interested in and how you might finance this. Some courses expect you to have particular competences or grades, and most will have deadlines for applications.

Even if you just want to go and do ‘any job’ to get some money together whilst you think about the future, planning this can make the difference between obtaining work or not given the current political circumstances. You will often find that the ‘any job’ type of job has management potential for those who want it, but it’s about knowing what is available on any particular organisation. So…

'Where am I now' could include a reflection on your current skills base, including analysing the skills and competences that you are gaining from your degree, other education experiences of note as well as work experience, volunteering, and other skills/interests etc. Useful sources could be module and degree descriptors from the university sites, internet sites or other discourses for any organisation that you have worked or volunteered for; the careers@lincoln site; sports and recreation sites etc.

The 'where do I want to be' could look at jobs, post grad education, volunteering, travelling, starting a business, training, or even, where can 'I' get inspiration/information about what might be available if you haven’t a clue. Use could be made of reflective techniques such as ‘career anchors’ or a DOTS analysis which might help you come to some conclusions about what you are interested in doing. You should make a career planning interview with our careers professionals and get them to help you do this, and you might want to look at both long and short term plans. The main issue here is to look at what there is out there, think about what might appeal to you and what these opportunities require in terms of competences. Useful sources would include websites from specific organisations, professions and educational institutes; academic sources on specific organisations, or services eg Police, Prisons, education, public sector; academic sources on theoretical, socio-economic and political issues such as organisational cultures, managerialism, performance indicators; conservativism, neo-liberalism, government policy etc; career planning tools such as ‘career anchors’ etc.

The 'How do I get there' is about matching the skills that you have identified to the plans that you are developing. In this section you will be expected to both identify what competences and experiences you have that the organisations you are interested in require, and if you don't have the required skills and competences, how are going to develop these. Useful sources again would be a mix of those stated in the first two sections.