Out of the Ordinary

During childhood, a child's likes and dislikes continue to change, whether they lose interest in certain things or they are influenced by their surroundings. As the child grows older, his or her interests begin to develop a pattern and become more permanent.

Possibility, curiosity, and uncertainty:
Throughout various stages of my life people have asked me what I want to become
when I grow up and I have given several different answers. One answer to that question is becoming a criminal investigator. When I respond with that answer, their eyebrows raise. They are surprised to hear this because it is not an ordinary career path, not something that you hear very often. Two questions arise in their mind, one of which is simply why. Another is, since when have girls started taking interest in such careers? To be quite honest, I don't have an explanation for either of these questions,   I just know that it's a possibility.

Is television realistic?
Most people have knowledge of criminal investigations acquired from TV shows. Some popular ones are, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Law and Order, NCIS, White Collar, Psych, Covert Affairs, Castle, Rizzoli & Isles and many more. These shows are only entertaining because they are nothing like reality, if they were realistic, people wouldn't watch them.

Back to Basics:
Criminal investigation is a process in which the objective is to unravel the information about a committed crime. Investigators are on a mission to discover the answers to questions like who, what, where, when, why, and how. Once they have information on a few of this questions, they can connect the dots and figure out the rest of the puzzle, however, the puzzle does not get solved as quickly as TV shows portray. In reality, solving a case could take several weeks, months, and even years. 
Cases are not solved as simply shown on TV, evidence isn't found with such ease, data is not always conclusive, test results are not positive every single time, clues don't correlate with each other so perfectly, everything is not so logical. Also, outside sources are required to investigate, such as warrants, access to databases, trained canine dogs for locating crime scene/criminal, witness statements, forensics department, weapons and gadgets.                                                                  


Qualifications:
Like any other career, criminal investigation requires degrees and extensive studies. Qualifications vary from agency to agency, but most agencies prefer to have a college degree in law enforcement, criminal justice or other related field, to have performed one year of patrol duty. In order to work in a federal department, it is a necessity to have a bachelor's degree in a field related to law enforcement. In addition, the job of a criminal investigator demands good interviewing and communication skills, patience, trust, honestly, logical thinking and reasoning, ability to be perceptive to certain reactions, problem solving/decision making skills, and good physical and mental health.

Yes, it is definitely not a mainstream job and yes it's not common for women to do such jobs, but what's the harm in doing something different than everybody else. Just another potential career among a wide range of others.