Expert: Dick Rogers - 5/30/2010

Question
First I just want to thank you for taking the time to help me, it means a lot.
I am a student at H.S. graduating this year and I plan to start college in August in Criminal Justice and then plan to transfer into a Forensic Science Program. I have known that I wanted to be involved with science as a career since about 7th grade, but as a child growing up in a very crime oriented city I was mislead and for a few years from about the age of 13 to 16 I experimented with a few drugs. I am not a dumb or misguided individual and see that part of my life as a stepping stone only and something that kids go through. As long as when you grow and mature you realize that their are other things in life that you want to pursue and are without a doubt so much more significant to you then those stupid times you had as a teen. For example, it is now a very possible dream of mine to become a Forensic Lab Technician. Ive taken a Criminal Justice Program in a Career & Technical School for two years now and I would love nothing more then to be able to pursue my dream. The more into it I get the more I am concerned my actions back then may still play a role in my chances of ever getting hired, anywhere. Please tell me their is hope for those of us who want to make something of ourselves. And that past mistakes will not be taken to extremes but taken into consideration for what they were, young experimentation. And that the adult I am now has no desire to ever touch anything like that again and I am ready to dedicate my life to this career. So, do I have a chance?

Answer
Kelly, generally, I defer questions dealing with potential hiring of young people with "experimentation" backgrounds.  Your question, however, was well thought out and contained the necessary maturation that I feel young people seem to avoid.  So, having said that, I think you must convey in your interviews that your teenage years were not mired in debauchery but on occasion were at time and place where prohibited drugs were being used.  Much depends on how you describe these years...pretty much as you have in your question but with emphasis on your recognition that such activities were not conducive to a productive life; and that you recognized early that sticking with these activities would lead to ruin. By the time you will be applying to a crime lab...or law enforcement agency, you will be an adult and will have a number of productive years to back up your claim of wanting work in forensics.  You seem to have a good connection with he English language and this helps quite a bit.  Be up front about your past but make sure whomever is listening is abundantly aware that you have chalked it up as youthful experimentation and went on with your life.  All the best.