Criminology Personal Statement Example 10

I have always been interested in the human mind. I have always wanted to know how it works, what triggers a certain behaviour, how people think and why do they do the things they do. What always struck me most about the human mind, was its complexity. Being an extrovert has been the explanation for the opportunity of communicating with a variety of people and these interaction have always been a perfect way to try to decipher their thoughts, personality and everything that leads to their behaviour. I am known among my friends to be the one who asks a lot of questions about their lives and being as detail oriented as I am has helped me a lot to understand them better.

I have always asked myself why people do bad things; at first it was all with the innocence of a child and later on with the scepticism of an educated man. I still remember playing with my toys on the floor while my parents were watching the news and the newscaster was talking about a murder that happened in my town. And then I asked myself: Why would anyone do that to another human being? I honestly could not begin to understand the reason for such an action.

Then I grew up, but the murders in my town did not stop so that made me question the actions of such people even harder and it determined me to look for answers to these questions. Criminology started to sound like something I would very much like to study somewhere around the time I read about Barry Loukaitis, a 14-year-old who killed his algebra teacher and two other class mates. After the killing he said: “This sure beats algebra, doesn’t it?”. I could not accept the fact that the wish to animate the algebra class would make someone kill three people. So I dug even deeper into the intricacies of the human mind.

I am perfectly aware that people do not always tell the truth and they more often than not hide their actual feelings from the outside world and that is the reason I am always curious about what they are really thinking. After all, you do not really understand an antagonist until you understand that in his own version of the world, he sees himself as a protagonist.

Every morning I take the subway to go to school and every time I get on it, I start watching the people around me. Even though I am just studying their posture, their clothes, the books that they hold in their hands or the music that blares from their headphones, I try to see past the mask they are trying to put on. And if common people in the subway don’t want others to see who they really are, how hard do criminals try to hide themselves? They have a better reason, of not being discovered and it makes it that much harder to see through them. That is why I have been starting easy with random people I am riding the train with or waiting in line with or interacting at school with. If I can decipher their behaviour, that brings me one step closer to being able to decipher criminal behaviour.

I was born in a small town and have been living there for the most part of my life, but I felt that a small town such as mine could not offer the proper education I felt I needed so I moved to the capital city when I started high school in the search of knowledge. They all say that knowledge is power but I do not want to achieve absolute knowledge thinking that it would somehow help me be powerful - not at all. I want to learn as much as I can for the sole purpose of helping society. And a degree in Criminology seems to me like the perfect way to do it. Human existence may sometimes be perceived as meaningless but the more I know, the more I learn, the less meaningless I feel knowing that with my knowledge I can actually help the society I live in. That sure beats algebra, doesn’t it?