Another "should I pursue a LE career" question...

[a7x]

Greetings,

Here is my situation to make a long story short:

I am 21 years old and have tested with 3 different agencies in California.

First agency: Passed written, passed oral, was invited to go into backgrounds but delcined because I had already been hired by second agency.
Second agency: Passed written, physical agility, oral, background, lie detector, medical, psychological, hired. Only person hired out of pool of approximately 300.
Third agency: Passed written, physical agility, oral, currently in "elgibility pool."

Well, I was in the academy but resigned. At 21 years old, I didn't feel ready whatsoever. I know I could have gotten through the academy, but I would have been doing myself and my department a disservice. I just wish I would have come to that realization before I actually got hired.

My background is squeaky clean, my grades are pretty good (associates degree +/- 3.0 GPA), I have 2 years experience working in law enforcement in a civilian position, and plan on pursuing my bachelors degree starting next fall.

I eventually want to get back into LE eventually, possibly in 5 years or so. Should I even bother or did I seal my fate by resigning? Honest opinions are much appreciated.

[FutureLE]

Greetings,

Here is my situation to make a long story short:

I am 21 years old and have tested with 3 different agencies in California.

First agency: Passed written, passed oral, was invited to go into backgrounds but delcined because I had already been hired by second agency.
Second agency: Passed written, physical agility, oral, background, lie detector, medical, psychological, hired. Only person hired out of pool of approximately 300.
Third agency: Passed written, physical agility, oral, currently in "elgibility pool."

Well, I was in the academy but resigned. At 21 years old, I didn't feel ready whatsoever. I know I could have gotten through the academy, but I would have been doing myself and my department a disservice. I just wish I would have come to that realization before I actually got hired.

My background is squeaky clean, my grades are pretty good (associates degree +/- 3.0 GPA), I have 2 years experience working in law enforcement in a civilian position, and plan on pursuing my bachelors degree starting next fall.

I eventually want to get back into LE eventually, possibly in 5 years or so. Should I even bother or did I seal my fate by resigning? Honest opinions are much appreciated.

I am in no way qualified to answer, but I think if you explain your situation to the dept. they would not hold the fact you resigned against you. It shows maturity to realize you were not ready, and the fact you have stayed out of trouble, have some law enforcement experience, and are working toward you BA and should have it by the time you apply again...Seems like a pretty good excuse to resign..IMO

[BrickCop]

I'm curious- at one point did you realize that you were not ready? Did you give it any thought during the exams and pre screening? You seem confident that you could complete the academy, so what exactly did you not feel ready for?

I don't think you jeopardized your chances in the future. You're still a kid relatively speaking, you still have ample time down the road.

[a7x]

I'm curious- at one point did you realize that you were not ready? Did you give it any thought during the exams and pre screening? You seem confident that you could complete the academy, so what exactly did you not feel ready for?

To be 100% honest with you, the doubt was in the back of my mind during the exams and pre-screening but I was getting so far along with it I decided to continue to do it. And when I was the only person that hadn't been DQ'ed, I decided to just go for it. Huge mistake on my behalf. And a lesson to all of those thinking about getting into LE. If there is ANY doubt, don't do it. It may take a couple of years longer to prepare yourself and there is nothing wrong with that, especially if you are young like me.

After the first day of the academy I pretty much knew I wasn't ready for it. I was letting the stress get to me from a few different things: All of the homework from the academy (obviously), it was the first time keeping and maintaining my own place, my mother having some health issues, and some added expectations that my department had that did not apply to cadets from other agencies.

The reason I want to go back into LE is that it is still what I want to do, and I feel with some more life experience I will be ready. I am mature for my age, but there are just some things you can only obtain through life experience. I know that if I was qualified enough to get hired at 21, I'll be even more qualified at 25 or 26. I just hope that my decision to resign at 21 won't haunt me for the rest of my life.

[NPDeLeon]

Was the decision to resign easy or did you toss and turn over it? I think you did the right mature thing to back out after not feeling ready to jump into the profession. I'm 22, have one more year on my BS degree and I'm chompin' at the bits to get hired on at an agency. LE is what i've wanted to do since my explorer days and I can't wait to get a job and make a career out of it!

My guess is that your AS degree was very easy to obtain and very minimal effort was needed to go through 2 years of Com Col if academy homework was getting to you. Hopefully getting your BS will be more challenging and you'll experience what it's like having homework all the time. I'm getting a degree in Business Admin and the workload is crazy and very difficult. The biz program is the number one program at the Univ. of Oregon that people fail out of because of the work load. Luckliy i have one year and i've stuck w/ it and should breeze through the last year! this really isn't relevent and i think i'm just rambling lol...

I wouldn't worry about this affecting your career in the future, like i said it shows alot of maturity to make that decision when many others would have just kept going. Good luck with your schooling!

[a7x]

The academy homework wasn't that tough, it was just a lot of work. The sleep deprivation that resulted in trying to get all of it done was the toughest part. Anymore opinions would be appreciated.

[Squiggy]

Not enough sleep...

I would wonder how well you would have done on 2 hours of sleep only to roll out of bed for court and go 10-8 shortly there after... In any case good luck I know the pains of getting hired. They would have motivated me to tought it out and make it happen.

Squiggy

Avenged Sevenfold.... Right on.

[NPDeLeon]

Can anyone post an honest opinion with this situation on whether another agecy would hire someone in a situation like this? No offense to him, but the costs that the agency took for him: time, maybe a little money, would seem flakey to another dept wouldn't it? Did the agency pick the next person in line or did they have to retest all over again? I totally understand why he did what he did and if I was under the same pressure seems like the right thing to do, but how would others percieve in your mind?

And I wasn't naggin on how hard the work was, I was just stating that the work load is much harder at a University than a Com Col which is probably why it seemed like to much, had ya have gone to a Univ instead of a Com Col you'd maybe had more experience with a bigger work load and could have handled it.

Anyway, I hope this doesn't seem like a negative post because that's not the intent! I wish the best of luck to you with school and hopefully settling down and becoming a peace officer somewhere!

[a7x]

Can anyone post an honest opinion with this situation on whether another agecy would hire someone in a situation like this? No offense to him, but the costs that the agency took for him: time, maybe a little money, would seem flakey to another dept wouldn't it? Did the agency pick the next person in line or did they have to retest all over again? I totally understand why he did what he did and if I was under the same pressure seems like the right thing to do, but how would others percieve in your mind?

I was the only one to make it through the initial process and backgrounds for the department out of three different testing groups over the span of about a year. I think they might still have one other person in backgrounds though.

I don't care if people post negatively in this thread, I just want honest opinions. This whole situation can only hurt my chances at future employment. I'm just wondering if wanting to go into LE in about 5 years is an unrealistic goal.

[NPDeLeon]

I'm just wondering if wanting to go into LE in about 5 years is an unrealistic goal.

I don't see why it would be unrealistic, the profession is always going to be there. I'm just curiuos why you're going to wait 5 years? Why not get your Bachelors and then try again? Should only take you 2 years to finish school...what else would you be postponing getting into the job. Here's my advice take what ya will from it. Join the reserves if you haven't already of a PD, that's the next best thing to being an actual officer when in school. This should give you an overview if this is actually what you want to do with your life. That's my opinion and i wish I had a reserve resource here in Eugene but I don't so I'm SOL, but take advantage of a program like that because if it is experience is what you seek than there is no better way than a reserve program.

[jnojr]

My thoughts... if the OP were to apply with another department in ~2 years and mention this incident, they would be likely to be looking very, very hard at him... there's a certain expense incurred in getting an applicant through the hiring process and into the academy, and here's someone who's already "stiffed" another agency. What makes you feel you're ready now, they'll ask. However, I'm thinking that the passage of ~5 years would be a sifficient counter due to the maturing anyone is going to experience from 21 to 26. I would want to have one or maybe two jobs in that period of time and a very, very solid set of work references.

I want very much to get into law enforcement, but have to admit to getting the "flutterbies" when watching videos about "high stress" academies. But then I figure, how many thousands of other people have made it through all of that? I know I can make it. Even if I felt doubts about making it the full 4-6 months, I can say I'll make it to the end of the month, week, day, or even to the next break! It's all a state of mind...

[NPDeLeon]

Good solid points...guess i see why he'd wait!

[concon02]

Greetings,

Here is my situation to make a long story short:

I am 21 years old and have tested with 3 different agencies in California.

First agency: Passed written, passed oral, was invited to go into backgrounds but delcined because I had already been hired by second agency.
Second agency: Passed written, physical agility, oral, background, lie detector, medical, psychological, hired. Only person hired out of pool of approximately 300.
Third agency: Passed written, physical agility, oral, currently in "elgibility pool."

Well, I was in the academy but resigned. At 21 years old, I didn't feel ready whatsoever. I know I could have gotten through the academy, but I would have been doing myself and my department a disservice. I just wish I would have come to that realization before I actually got hired.

My background is squeaky clean, my grades are pretty good (associates degree +/- 3.0 GPA), I have 2 years experience working in law enforcement in a civilian position, and plan on pursuing my bachelors degree starting next fall.

I eventually want to get back into LE eventually, possibly in 5 years or so. Should I even bother or did I seal my fate by resigning? Honest opinions are much appreciated.

I like your username. Avenged Sevenfold!