ALT-3 A Career in Crime Scene Investigation
It had never crossed my mind to work in the forensics area but somehow, things changed and I never looked back since. But don't get the wrong idea, I am not in this field for that long!
A little summary of the type of education needed here. Well, different countries have different systems so don't be puzzled by them. Citing my own country for example, basically to be a Lab Officer, you only need a Diploma that is relevant to the position you are working in. We do not have many forensic degrees or above holders, due to the fact that we only have one forensic science lab in the entire country and crime rate is not that high. And as a guideline by the accreditation body that we follow, it is not a must that one who works as a Scientific Officer or Lab head be a holder of forensic degree or masters in forensic.
Crime scene investigation is handled by the police basically in my country. Our lab is not governed by the police so generally, we the lab rats seldom set foot to crime scene, unless necessary. Depending on which lab one is based in, the training will be different. Exception being if your lab chose to cross-train their staff in different areas. Most areas that we see in a forensic lab are basically DNA, Firearms, Trace, Fingerprint, Questioned Documents, Narcotics and Toxicology.
It is an art utilising science as it's tool, no matter you are working on scene or in the lab. What you have are just bits of puzzle, waiting to be pieced together and most of the time that is only what you have. It will take efforts of many others and many months to piece a puzzle together.
Most people are familiar with the technical aspect but not the psychological aspect of forensics work. The finer points of the work are, in fact the psychological aspect of it. Absolute objectivity is what most people think we worship but how wrong that is. We, as the people conducting tests, interpreting results are subjective by nature, based on our cognitive process.
Sometimes the guilty feeling that you are unable to undo anything that had been done to a victim can be very strong too. Many times, you rise bright and early and start to wonder had someone else been hurt or killed during the night because the puzzle is not pieced yet.
To sum things up, the learning of the science to become part of the field is not difficult but the psycological aspect is the harder one to master. If you are thinking of changing to a career to forensics or planning to go into one, take a hard look at the psycological aspect as well. It is not as easy as one thinks.
