I have been thinking of becoming a police officer myself. You make pretty good money to start out and every day would be different. You might as well finish up your degree because that will look good to have it. My friend that I graduated with went to work for the Santa Cruz PD. They started him out at 48k/ year while in academy. When he finished the academy he was at 52k/ year. That was like a year ago. Now he is making close to 60k/ year and he is 21 years old. I forgot how his schedule works but every other week he gets 3 days off. I have been thinking of applying for federal law enforcement such as DEA, FBI, or ATF. Or maybe go to work for the SDPD.

 

Yeah, I am aware of stress...I work in tech support right now...LOL. Stress is a given with any job, but I believe that stress can be lessen by doing what you want to do.

Fear? Well, fear of someone who has nothing to live for is imminent. I am bound to come across that in this line of work. Hell, you may come across it too if someone decides to go postal. It's something no one wants, but someone has to deal with it...hence the need for law enforcement. That's why I want to be the person who can make a difference about situations like this.

Long hours? HAHAHAHA...that's also a given. I work long hours right now anyway. In fact, we are required to work 5 holidays out of the 9 for the year...HAHA...wait...that sucks So yeah...long hours and random hours won't scare me

Pay sucking? LOL....I am not exactly in it for the pay, but making $60k a year after working for a while works for me....I am bilingual and I will have a college degree...so the pay should be fairly decent.

Thanks for pointing that out. That's why I am going to seriously think about it in the next few weeks. I am probably going to talk to a few police officers about their experiences as well. Again, thanks for helping me out

 

He's not making that money on salary I can gaurantee you that. They normally start you between 35-45k with a bachelors degree in law or a like field. He's full of shit! But I won't deny that his pay checks are hefty sometimes. They make their money in overtime... period. But when you first start off you have last pick of overtime hours if there are any left, etc. You have to work your way up very slowly.


PS. Federal law is a whole other topic. I would be interested in that. But state or local police.. **** THAT.

 

Nope I'm tellin you the turth. He wouldnt lie. There is nothing he has to prove by lying. Just beleive it and move along now

 

A broken computer and the stress of someone pulling a gun, knife, etc. are two totally different thing. I do what I love right now and I'm stressed to the max, so forget that idea.

Long hours "being incredibly bored!". I would go nuts sitting in a car for 20 minutes let alone a few hours like these guys do. Traffic duty, blah, blah, blah.

Don't plan on making that amount of money for quite sometime. Seriously!

Well more power to you if you go that route. Definately talk to a few cops. Don't go by their opinion alone though. Most of those guys are miserable ****s and will tell you they love their job even though they hate it (comes with the territory of dealing with assholes and losers all day long), but you do get your occassional good/nice cop.

I spoke with a Harlem cop not to long ago... he was a young guy, big too, and he loved his job. Said he may have not done it all over again, but he makes the best of it...

Good luck!

 

Didn't read a lot of the responses, but I think you should do what makes you happiest. It's funny, I really gave a lot of thought into becoming a Police officer or fire fighter a few months ago, wondering whether I was wanting to become a lawyer for the right reasons.

The thing that made me choose to stick with it is that I want to own my own business one day (law practice) and also want a chance to possibly get into the business aspect of the entertainment field (contract negotiation/agent). So for now, I'll stick with it, seems like with the current events happening right now, that becoming an agent will be a possibility.

But I'm not going to just focus on that only, if something happens and I decide different and do something else, then so be it. Afterall, this is what we want to do with our lives, right? Gotta be happy with our choices, IMHO.

Ideally, I'd love to act or get into music, but for me.. it's too risky, then again, after working on this film thing, I've been getting a lot of positive feedback from people about me needing to pursue acting.

 

Like I said he could pull 60k a year..... but not salary. Its mostly overtime.


Think of it this way... If he's makin 60k a year.. that means he's roughly makin about 28 bucks on hour.. Which if he's 21 like you said... he most likely has no degree and came from the local music store makin $7 bucks an hour (or whatever he did before). No way would his salary jump that much from 48k to 52k to 60k. Thats just crazy!

A cop may be a decent job, but it's not that rewarding...

Not to mention he makes more money in overtime... therefore we will say on average he works about 20 hours of overtime a week. Which is pretty normal... so without him getting time and a half which I believe they get... actually pretty positive, he makes an additional 560 a week or 2200 a month. Keep in mind this is not time and a half. So what your saying is he actually makes after over time well over 90k a year? Bullshit! Move along now.....

 

Deek what film thing?

 

Yeah, right now its hard to get hired onto the PD, Jaymar88 would know the going rate for entry level officers, I believe the CA highway patrol gets $60k to start, not bad..

 

my friend cowrote a screenplay, already got backing from a studio for distribution (theaters) and we just finished up filming for the promotional trailor which we'll show investors.

I'm going to audition for a part when they actually get ready to film next year, but until then, I'll be working on ad placement for the movie