 |
 |
By Joseph M. Molina
Arizona Daily Wildcat
September 24, 1996
Students who have an interest in joining the FBI after graduation got some tips on what the bureau is looking for from one of the its special agents.The Undergraduate Society of Criminal Justice Studies had FBI Special Agent Hank G. Brice, who has been with the bureau for one year, discuss current hiring procedures for college graduates on Wednesday.
According to an FBI video presentation, applicant requirements include: being between the ages of 23 and 38 years old, passing academic and physical tests, passing a thorough educational and personal background check and passing a drug test.
Brice said 95 percent of applicants are dismissed because they fail the drug test. The bureau allows minimal drug use and asks that applicants reveal their entire drug history, not lie about it, he said.
The bureau is looking for persons fluent in a foreign language, such as Chinese and other Middle Eastern languages, Brice said. Spanish is not enough because so many people speak it now, he said.
An agent's starting salary is $42,000 and can go as high as $87,000 for a senior agent, Brice said.
Supervisors are the top-paid members of the FBI, Brice said. He said most agents do not wish to become supervisors because these are office positions and most people prefer to be street agents.
An agent can become a supervisor after 10 years with the bureau, he said.
Brice also lectured on how a case gets started.
The bureau receives calls and complaints, and then a supervisor decides whether or not to assign the case to an agent, he said.
There are currently 10,400 agents and 13,000 support personnel in the bureau, Brice said. He said support personnel are non-agents, but obtaining one of these positions is still a good way to start with the bureau.
Graduates with a degree in accounting have the best opportunity of getting hired right out of college, Brice said. He said a graduate with a law degree has the second best chance, after practicing law for three years.
Graduates who join the military or the police department and work for at least three years also have a good chance of getting hired because of the experience they obtain, Brice said.
He said all the requirements make it difficult to join the bureau and that only one out of 100 applicants become agents.
If the applicant passes all the requirements, the person goes to the FBI Academy for intensive training in fitness, firearms and investigative work.
Brice said upon graduation, the agent reports to a field agency. The agent lists his top choices of where he would like to work, he said. About 80 percent of agents get one of their first five choices.
Jo Ann Sakato, special agent applicant recruiter, said the bureau offers a summer honor internship for undergraduate students in their junior year or higher, as well as an internship for full-time graduate students.
FBI applicants must have a cumulative grade point average of 3.0 or higher, be a U.S. citizen, submit a current transcript, submit a personal rsum, submit a letter of recommendation from their appropriate dean, write a 500 word essay, and send a picture identification, Sakato said.
The selection process is handled in Phoenix, and the final decision is made at the FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C., where the internship takes place, Sakato said.
The internship is an administrative position, she said. It is a paid internship where the student can earn between $5,400 and $6,000 over the summer, depending on his or her placement, she said.
Students must provide their own transportation to Washington and are encouraged to bring their own car, Sakato said.
Of the 100 interns chosen last summer, three were from the UA, she said.
Brice also lectured on the jurisdiction that the bureau investigates.
Four areas it investigates are:
- White collar crime, such as public corruption and financial institutional fraud.
- Violent crime, such as kidnapping and gang violence.
- National foreign intelligence crime, such as foreign nationals that are in the United States for other reasons than what they had originally said.
- Drug crimes, such as drug trafficking.
Adria Channelle, political science junior, said he attended the meeting because of his interest in the bureau and said all his questions were answered.
Michael P. Polakowski, associate professor and adviser for the Undergraduate Society of Criminal Justice Studies, said 20 percent of the students in this department have an interest in joining the FBI.
The meeting was to let students know what it is like to be an agent in the FBI, Polakowski said. Brice was not paid for the lecture, he added.
About 100 people attended the meeting.
|
|
|