Second Draft

The community that I chose to write about is the college of Criminology and Criminal justice in Florida State University (FSU). I chose this community because most importantly I am currently a part of it as an undergraduate student majoring in Criminology at FSU. Another reason why I chose this specific topic is because I would like to learn more about this college graduate program. I would like to continue to be a part of this college in the future but this time as a graduate student. I know for sure that I want to continue my education in Criminology after I achieve a bachelor by going to graduate school and getting my master’s but I would also like to get more information about the doctoral program Florida State University offers. I want to learn more about it and particularly I want to learn how can one make a difference by obtaining a PhD from Florida State University’s college of Criminology?

More and more people are attracted to the field of Criminology but why? What exactly is criminology? By definition criminology is the study of crime and its causes, costs, and consequences (Roufa). One cause of people being more interested in criminology is because of the media. Nowadays the media shows many different aspects of our day to day lives that perpetuates criminology and the people behind this field in mostly negative ways. People need to remember the media is almost always bias. This is why we need more answers in questions about criminology, and the way to find these answers is through educating ourselves about the subject of matter. The way to do this is by doing investigations and researches on our own. This is how people get attracted to this field. They like the challenge that it brings and they want more of it. Therefore we end up with more and more young people being interested in getting an education in this field. Not only are more people intrigued by the study of criminology but when they start taking classes in it and study the material, they end up staying in this field because “the meat of the subject seems to sustain them more than the ephemera that attracted them to enroll” (Braithwaite). The goal that criminologists try to achieve these days seem to be to educate future generations of students to be more thoughtful in their work and less automatically punitive in their thinking about how to respond to violence and crime by using the social movement for restorative justice, conceived as a long-run agenda of social justice transformation. Another reason for why criminology has become more desirable to people is because it offers material that policy makers can use. Comparing it to other fields, specifically in the social science sphere, criminology’s power comes from the epistemological pluralism being the dominant ethos (Braithwaite).

There are so many great criminology colleges in the nation and in the world, so how do you know which one to choose? The answer to this question must be Florida State’s. This college is not only the oldest of its kind but it keeps improving on a daily basis. To this day this institution is at the top of college rankings. According to the Center for World University Rankings Florida State’s College of Criminology and Criminal Justice is ranked #1 in the world (Center for World University Rankings). The college has received this honor based on the amount of research articles being published in top-tier journals by the university’s faculty members. One of the current faculty members there is Dr. Billy Close. He is an Assistant Professor and Director of Service Learning and Mentoring in the College of Criminology. During a recent interview Dr. Close said this about the doctoral program offered at this college: “...it has the experience, the productivity in term of output of students that probably is unmatched in terms of other programs. So it stands alone in terms of its legacy. I think that matters a lot. I also think that many graduates of the College of Criminology are pioneers in the field in various ways of research in terms of teaching….I think those things make the College of Criminology quite unique.”

Research is used for establishing, confronting, or confirming facts about a specific investigation. Research is essential to learning. It provides us with solutions we need, in order to solve different problems within our society. It is also critically important when it comes to the study of criminology. It is the tool criminologists use in order to give a proper understanding of a criminal problem, its causes, and the possible solutions for it. For Dr. Close research literally means taking another look at something that has already been examined and determine whether those findings make sense in light of our current society. This is exactly why if you are looking at attending a graduate program in criminology and criminal justice you need to seriously consider the research, and its findings that the specific school is doing. Florida State University’s College of Criminology and Criminal Justice has proved itself as one of the best research colleges there is. The research faculty members present is critical in the criminal world sphere. The graduate students in this school are being included in the research done there. As part of the intellectual community, they have collaborated with the faculty in many of the publications, which greatly contributed to this college No.1 ranking (“Florida State College of Criminology and Criminal Justice Ranks No.1.”).

In recent years there has been a substantial growth in getting a doctoral education in the field of Criminology. Florida State University was the very first school in North America to start a doctoral program in criminology (Frost). Even though the need of doctoral programs have grown, getting in a program like this is not an easy thing to do. After applying, it is all in the hands of an admission committee. A committee for programs like these seems make decisions on who they admit by relying on a variety of indicators. They would consider each measurement of the applicant’s performance as well as making a holistic decision on how much is the applicant’s suitability for doctoral study. In the past criminology as a major, and especially as a doctorate program has been viewed as a sub-study by other majors from the social sciences. Today criminology as a field has more than just proved itself. Now it is one of the most growing and important fields in our society. By the year of 2005, the number of schools that offer a criminology PhD had increased from 25 to 34 schools in the nation (Steiner). This is in result of the high demand this field is experiencing nowadays, both academically and publicly.