From time to time, we like to showcase a new SNC grad who’s entered the workplace or grad school. Success stories like these are pretty common. In fact, 95 percent of SNC's Class of 2022 alumni who responded to a survey said they were employed, in grad school or doing service work within nine months of graduating.

Hometown: New Holstein, Wis.
Graduation year: 2021
Degree: Psychology and Spanish
Plans after graduation: Brittany is pursuing a Master of Arts in forensic psychology at California Baptist University.

What was it that piqued your interest about the crime field?

I love watching “Criminal Minds” and eventually I’d like to profile criminals like they do on that show. A master’s degree in forensic psychology is a great way to get there.

Forensic psychology is where psychology and the law meet. It’s something a lot more people are interested in, I think because of all the crime shows. There aren’t any forensic psychology programs offered in Wisconsin, so I settled on California Baptist University because it’s a great campus and they put a lot of emphasis on profiling, which is what I want to do.

How would you define “profiling”?

Profiling is piecing together everything there is to know about a person related to a crime and what happened, in the course of trying to figure out who’s responsible. It can be used in many ways at all stages of an investigation to get to know more about a person – why they’re doing what they’re doing and what’s going on inside their head – and prevent further crime from happening.

How did your psychology studies at St. Norbert help pave the way for your next steps?

Even though St. Norbert doesn’t have a forensic concentration, I did take a class very relevant to it, abnormal psychology with Dr. Michelle Schoenleber. That was a good way to put what I want to do together with what I was learning, and it was one of the requirements for my grad school program – so the fact that it’s offered here was very important. You learn about all of the different disorders, which play a lot into forensic psychology. I also wrote a research paper for an independent study about what forensic psychologists do.

How does your Spanish degree tie in?

I enjoyed Spanish classes in middle and high school and wanted to continue taking them in college. I’m glad I did, because it pushed me to study abroad in Ecuador – which I wanted to do, but don’t know if I would have done otherwise.

While there I even took classes in social psychology and psycho-criminology. Both were in Spanish, so it was a little difficult at times (since the professors talk a lot faster than they do here, being native speakers), but they were interesting! In California I’m about an hour from Los Angeles and am hoping for opportunities to keep practicing the language.

Where do you see yourself working after getting your master’s degree?

There are forensic psychologists who have their own clinics, and if I wanted to work for them I could, but I’ll be looking at government agencies. The FBI offers a summer internship for graduate students, so ideally I’ll be looking into that while I’m still in my program, then possibly working with the U.S. Marshals and eventually working my way back to the FBI, or something like that. There are a lot of possibilities!