Who is Deserving?

The dilemma of wanting to help people is who to help? Christmas has just past, winter is here and everybody needs charity, especially with every benefit being cut. I've read about the deserving, undeserving poor and thought; isn't everybody deserving? Don't we all deserve help to some degree? I know I wouldn't be getting a B.A degree in criminology without the amount of help I've had. The general public seem to resent students for getting free handouts and argue that most young people are lazy, even if free handouts eventually get us a job. Or students are jealous of  other students who don't need handouts because they have rich parents, yet they end up with the same money as us and their parents probably expect a lot more back from their investment than my parents who don't mind what I do, as long as I enjoy doing it.

Choice is the matter, we choose to help who we think deserves it and can't help thinking that others are less deserving because this ideology has been drilled into us for over 100 hundred years. Therefore when I argue that homeless people are victims because they're homeless, my friend argues that their victims because they're too lazy to get a job or addicted to drugs, so their homelessness is their own fault. Apparently socialization has no part in economics and everything has a right answer or at least my house mates will argue for up to hours about the most economically viable society, whist ignoring all politics and ethics which criminologists have to consider. So I think to myself when I can't decide if I should give money to the homeless person, the busker or the preacher; who deserves it the most? Should I listen to my house mates and follow the most economic option which would be to keep it. Or should I listen to myself and give it to the homeless person because that's my dissertation topic and keeping it myself will only benefit the bank, not the community. 'Who is the most deserving' should be changed to who is the most beneficial? Giving my money to the preacher might encourage them to make society a better place through religion, regardless that I'm not religious. Giving it to the homeless man might benefit society if it gets him off the street (because we no longer own our streets) or he might spend it on booze or drugs or he might spend it on soup. The point is that who ever you give your money to, they will spend it. Were as giving it to the bank only benefits the bank. Selfishness only encourages us to become more individualised instead of diversified and selflessness through giving money or through volunteering will only ever benefit society, I don't care what your argument is; giving something for free will never cause harm to anybody. I volunteer, I keep my money to pay for student debt and instead I give time.

I'm assuming that we all have the same benefits in mind, but when most no longer believe in society and others believe in nothing else, who are we benefiting when we're not benefiting society? Where does our money go? Well, that we'd all like the know....

Graduate Schemes Less Than Likely

Ok, I tried. I tried really hard to understand the maths, the percentages and numbers and place them in scenarios. But after spending 3hrs yesterday failing to get through a 30 minute practice numerical test I've decided that I'm not even slightly prepared for graduate recruitment, especially the recruiters who's grade requirements go back to GCSE level. Lesson learnt; preparation, preparation and preparation. I'm usually good at this but I blame the timing of our semester dates for failing to have a Festival of Careers at an earlier date, preferable not a week before the deadline for most graduate recruiters or at least the ones I spoke to. I should of considered wider options than probation when I first realised how much work experience I'd need to get such a role and the fact that the government prefer profit over public service. Despite missing deadlines for graduate jobs I'm not even sure that I want, I'll still take a good look at them after I've graduated and focus on a few (rather than many), when I have the time to improve my maths and research properly without worrying about how I plan to interview homeless people in the street and all the ethical issues that come with a criminology dissertation.

To be honest I didn't study criminology to work for a company, I studied it because I want to work with ex-offenders or youth offenders or become a social worker or more recently a clinical probation officer (providing I gain at least a 2:1 in my Clinical Issues module), and I'm fairly sure all of these roles require little mathematical understanding but more decision making exercises which I'm usually good at. I know I don't want to work for the Police after volunteering with them for a short time last year. I'm still trying to decide how the work experience I have as a Leicester Ambassador is relevant to social work... Maybe travelling would be an option, I've been told about some good programmes that pay well to teach English abroad and my house mate has applied for JET. Maybe I'll be a travelling social worker....

Reflection on Careers Research

To reflect on my careers research so far I have to admit that it’s not going so well. My preferences from starting at University have been to work with people and to achieve this I’ve become a Leicester Ambassador, ISWP Assistant  and part of the SET Team. While these roles have improved my interpersonal skills and work experience for a H.R role, I haven’t been able to get any specific experience in criminal justice related to my criminology degree. Such experience would be with the Leicestershire Police, Probation Service, Futures Unlocked or the many other opportunities around Leicester. Unfortunately at our ‘Criminal Justice Careers Fair’ last year only NOMS were recruiting to take on 15 people nationwide and even admitted they won’t be recruiting in 2013. The Leicester Police have failed to get back in touch with me about community volunteering and because of my previous time commitments with them I missed the last volunteering recruitment for Futures Unlocked rehabilitation service. 

In reflection of last semesters career research, I not only attended but ran one of the sponsor stands (Contact Student Volunteers) at the Festival of Careers which improved my networking skills significantly as I had none previously and opened up the opportunity of widening my careers research to Government organisations and business recruiters as I realised they essentially had the same graduate leadership and project management schemes. Unfortunately after apply for GCHQ I realised I didn't have enough experience to even answer all of the questions because I have no example of working with ‘experts at the forefront of their field’. And after spending 10 minutes staring at my PC screen attempting to figure out 2.61% of 75,010 I've decided that I need to do some online practice tests to refresh my maths before I apply for the Civil Service Summer Internship Programme. 

I was never great with numbers but I've always been great with people. My next plan is to go through the Times 100 Graduate Recruiters, apply for Futures Unlocked for the 3^rd time and do some research to find out exactly the kind of work experience I need for social work. In further reflection I could have planned my research better or perhaps followed up my initial research at the Festival of Careers quicker, if I hadn’t got swamped by my essays and a significant personal event. In retrospect of that event it made me realise just how important planning and thinking ahead is. And in fairness to my indecisive personality, I may not know exactly which graduate path I wish to take but at least I’ll have graduate prospects.