I saw an interesting ad on Facebook, for a Masters in "Law Enforcement Intelligence and Analysis" out of Michigan State University.
Since I have restarted a job search, I've also kept my eye out for educational possibilities to enhance the job search. This ad caught my attention because it is very related to my masters in Criminal Justice, but focuses on an area you might have recalled me mentioning once or a thousand times...intelligence.
I spoke with a rep from the school today (it turned out that it was also an application interview!); the program hits on all cylinders as far as I am concerned. I am hoping that it includes specific instruction on NSA and GEOINT software. The rep did cover GEOINT programs, and I recalled a presentation from a convention on GEOINT which presented it's capabilities in so many possible functions. There is also an entire focus of the program on OSINT. The course list has quite a few interesting titles.
I noted four areas of concern for what I expected out of a program:
- The teaching of critical thinking skills
- That the instructors be experienced in the areas taught
- That classroom instruction be freed of safe-spaces and trigger warnings (it is impossible to think critically when some data is pre-filtered on political considerations)
- That there would be some career assistance
I was happy with the answers the rep gave me on these issue. It was a good conversation all the way around; I told him about Zotero, and he was enthused about using it in his own studies.
See Zotero for scholars, students, and archivists - a free tool for organizing and citing your research
At the end of the conversation, he told me that it had been an application interview, and I had passed impressively (please allow my toot my own horn for a minute LOL).
If I get accepted, the program will last for 2 years and 4 months; 2 classes at a time for 15 weeks a session. The expected workload is 15-20 hours a week, which is a snap since I was doing 30-40 hours a week for my last school!
Hopefully, everything comes together and I will start school again by September!
