Introduction by Dr Georgie Benford: Director of Learning and Teaching for Health and Social Sciences
Welcome to our blog today. I am thrilled to share a unique and insightful piece from an exceptional young guest contributor. Katie recently had the exciting opportunity to gain secondary school work experience with the Policing Programme at UWE. This experience provided Katie with a glimpse into the world of higher education and our role in delivering a degree education to the profession of policing.
During Katie’s time with us, she was immersed in various activities, learning directly from professionals and academics who are passionate about Policing. Katie kindly agreed to write a reflection on her experience, which we are delighted to share in this blog. We hope you enjoy reading this as much as we enjoyed having Katie spend a week with the UWE Policing Team.
The truth, the whole truth
During my work experience I took part in range of different activities. My favourite experience was a trip to the deception lab, which is all about detecting dishonest responses in interview scenarios. I was able to take a few surveys to see if I was able to initially recognise when people were lying. After testing my skills, I got taught how to detect lying and to support truthtellers in these scenarios. It was really enjoyable and interesting because you would think that identifying lying would be easy but during the session I realised that it is so much more complex than you would imagine! This experience really stood out to me because it was also really relevant to my future career as I’d like to become a Police Detective.
Another thing I did during my work experience was helping with a student engagement day. This included supporting the staff and students attending by going on a tour, observing some simulated crime scenes, for example a burglary scenario and attending some training about how to use handcuffs. There was also a talk about the Policing courses on offer at UWE.
Meeting the experts
I talked with a lot of ex police officers during the week; this inspired me a lot. They helped me understand what it was like to be an officer, shared their experiences and helped me learn about Police ethics, which was something new to me. They all helped me develop my knowledge on becoming a police officer, for example they talked about the rank structure and different jobs within the police. I also attended a workshop about drug and alcohol usage and how the students’ union support students to drink safely while still having fun at university.
Coming to UWE for work experience really helped me understand how to get into the Police and it made me look forward to going onto the Police Constable Degree Apprenticeship (PCDA) course. I gained new knowledge about the university and the different courses and I got taught about the student timetable. Throughout the week I have realised more and more that there are a range of different jobs within policing, and its more varied than I thought. There’s something for everyone in the police, there’s forensics involved, psychology and critical thinking; loads of different aspects and choices within one whole career.
Help is at hand
If you have any questions about a career in Policing, but don’t know how to get there or what specific route to take, or even what role you want to be in I would recommend that you speak to UWE too. I would reach out, ask the staff any questions, and learn about their courses. If you do this, I would 100% say that you’ll have a better idea of the courses and whether Policing is for you.
To sum up my work experience it was really exciting and very interesting. I had a lot of fun hearing about the courses and in particular looking round the simulations and doing the deception lab.
The experience has improved my confidence in talking to new people, and my IT skills but the most important lesson I’ve learned would have to be that putting yourself out there is essential, and it gets so much easier the more you do it.
My advice to someone who’s thinking about doing work experience at UWE is to do it. The hardest part of my week was definitely the first day on Monday. This is because I didn’t really know what to expect and that was overwhelming. Further into the week the less nervous I got. Once you get used to it, it is definitely a really good place for work experience. Also, I would recommend other student’s to be confident in your abilities and ask questions because, you aren’t going to get judged and people are trying to help you. They’re doing it for you, so you might as well ask for help.
What I’ve learned
This week has given me so much more information than I have ever been exposed to, not only about joining the police, but what it is like being in the Police too. I am now more confident in what routes I could to take to get into the Police, which I was uncertain about before. I have identified the training I need to do and I have been able to meet the relevant course leader. This course is my next step to achieving my goal and I am looking forward to progressing.
Here at UWE, we all wish Katie the very best in achieving her ambition of joining the Police. More information on joining can be found here
Editorial Team
Paul Williamson (Editor-in-Chief); Claudia McCready (Lecturer); Eve Smietanko (Joint Programme Leader & Senior Lecturer); Ian Lowe (Senior Lecturer); Micah Hassell (Senior Lecturer) & Claire Bowers (Senior Lecturer).
If you would like to be a guest blogger, please contact Police.Blog@uwe.ac.uk
