St. Cloud Police

[HailStorm]

Hello.
Anyone associated in any way with SCPD? I'm heading up to St. Cloud State University next fall, interested in getting on with their reserves, and would like additional information about what their reserves do, how they are treated/liked, the 'atmosphere' of the dept. in general, IE. is it worthwhile to throw my application in?
Thanks!
~Ted

[fael0401]

I think their reserves actually do quite a bit. As far as I know, the officers treat the researves pretty well. Better than their CSO's I have heard.


What do I know though, not much.

[cjs-luke]

I'm up here right now, and from what I've heard from people (CJS majors and SCSU public safety officers who have applied), that they really don't like the college students, for reasons unknown to me. I know we have had a lot of people apply from our dept and not get accepted. I would guess it has something to do with the fact that most people leave this party town what they graduate. The only one who did get in is a St. Cloud native.
I would still apply if I were you, but that's just what I have "heard".

[Smiff]

The SCPD doesn't like SCSU students. As an alumni, honestly, I don't blame them. Between move in day and Homecoming, I wouldn't have liked us either. Those two days are essentially drunkfests from 8 am to whenever the last man drops, usually around midnight or later.

I haven't heard much about the reserves, so I can't really comment on that, but I did almost accept a job with the department. I say almost because I turned it down to head to another department. It would seem that I made the right choice. I haven't heard too many good things about the SCPD, it seems to be micromanaged and there are a ton of issues with politics. Again, I have never worked there, so these are only things that I have heard and not experienced firsthand.

My best advice would be to go down there and talk to some people for yourself. The dept didn't seem to be a good fit for me, but that isn't to say that you wouldn't love it.

Best of luck to you

[toasterlocker]

Not saying don't try, but...

All I can say is good luck. SCPD reserves gets tons of applicants, and they rarely hire college students. They are generally more interested in "community members," not young folks trying to get into law enforcement. Plus they only have 25 reservists, so there might not even be an opening to apply for.

If you are just looking for any old reserve position, and are willing to commute 20 minutes from St. Cloud, Big Lake might be a good option. You probably would be bored out of your mind, but if you are just looking for resume filler anyway, it is worth your consideration.

[squad51]

If you want to get some good experiance..become an EMT and get on with an ambulance service part time up there.....thats shows a lot, plus you will be working with officers and give you radio skills, emergency driving skills, and just plain old emergency response and dealing with people in trouble skills.

[HailStorm]

Squad--
Absolutely looked in to that. As far as I can tell, the ambulance service up there is Gold Cross, and they are not taking volunteers. The only paid positions they have in the St. Cloud area are for EMT-P. Damn.
St. Cloud Fire is a combi department, and the volunteer side is not accepting volunteers. Double damn. But I should get an email from them when they have an opening.

[IT2PD]

My little sister went to college up there and worked as an EMT for a couple years through (I think) Gold Cross. She wasn't able to get on directly in St Cloud, but but didn't sound like she had too much trouble in one of the little rural communities surrounding it. The pay was insanely low, but at least you can study while you're sitting at the fire station for your on-call days. I know she also was able to work a lot of the sporting events at SCSU through them.

If I remember right, she had to take a one semester course (or over the summer) to get started, then they did a lot of on the job training.

[gopherpuckfan]

HailStorm,

Maybe look at reserving for one of the county reserve units there. St. Cloud has 3 different counties in the immediate area.