>> It's for you to need to learn to follow your gut instincts.
Your hair raise on back of your neck, you better listen to it, you know.
When you have two, three o'clock in the morning-- I mean when I was working on the road,
if it's two o'clock in the morning, I was the only trooper out for eight counties
on many nights and you try not to bite off more than you can chew.
You know, you got to be smarter about it.
And no matter what kind of call you're approaching,
what kind of situation you're approaching,
you always have to think the worst, preparing for the worst.
We call it-- you say-- it was-- they used to have a theory of if-then thinking.
If this happens, then I'm going to do that, you know, and that one state police they said, "No,
you need to think more when than think them.
You need to go into situation when this happens, this is going to be my reaction.
You're always behind the curb because they're acting, you're reacting.
Really, I think not just education but, you know, military background always helps as well.
I don't think it's so important what your major is.
A lot of people want to go in and go in to criminology or sociology or whatever,
which is what I did, however, there's nothing really prepares you for police work other
than going out there and doing it.
Even in-- you go through the 20 something week academy, that doesn't necessarily prepare you
for it until you get out there and you do it.
I would recommend somebody going in to whatever field that interest them
in college or continuing education.
However, you don't-- it's misnomer, you don't necessarily need
to go into criminology or sociology.