How To Get Into Forensics?
I currently live in the Charlotte, NC, metro area and I’m wanting to find out what sort of degree I need to get into the forensics field. I’ve gathered there’s different aspects of forensics and I’m pretty cool about going into any of them, except I don’t want to have to be the doctor who does all the testing and examinations on the corpses. I want to actually be a person either investigating the crime scene, doing computer analysis or what not of the crime, etc. Something along those fields of it. So I need to know one, what type of degree will I need? Two, what colleges offer this (online or in the Charlotte metro area, preferably in the metro area but if I know the degree I can probably find that for myself)? Three, I’m currently a single working father and I’d like to know an average of what a forensics investigator makes starting out because I do have to provide for my son. I have no college education, just a high school diploma. I had graduated with honors back in 2006. So that’s where I’m currently at education wise. I also wouldn’t mind doing the ballistics testing in the forensics field but I doubt that would be a full time aspect but more information on this would also be appreciated. Thanks for the help!
It depends on the route. Crime scene investigation can be achieved for some of the areas through the police departments. The stuff that is done in the labs (bullet analysis, trace evidence, forgery documents, hair analysis, DNA, etc) is a criminalist. These people have a bachelors in chemistry or bio & some sort of lab experience/training such as a medical technologist. Then the criminalistics degree is a masters. There are also coroner’s investigators, with some sort of law & medical backgrounds.
Salary is generally federal or civil service & depends greatly. In your area specifically, you should do some research on what training is necessary.
Look for Criminal Justice programs at local colleges. You may even be able to get an AA first.
As far as pay goes, check out sites like Salary.com, that has real world pay ranges by job and location. (A quick search didn’t pull up anything on “Forensics”. The closest I found was Detective/Investigator. The pay range was from $25K to $55K, with $40K being the median.)