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When Brian Burnett, a detective with the Greensboro Police Department, started thinking about going back to school to earn a bachelor’s degree, it wasn’t necessarily because he needed a degree to advance within the department. At the time, Burnett had an associate degree in computer science and had been a police officer for nine years.

His motivation was more personal.  

“I wanted to show my children how important an education is,” says the 37-year-old father of two. 

After looking at several colleges, Burnett found exactly what he was looking for at Guilford College, which offers a Bachelor of Science in criminal justice. He enrolled in fall 2007.

“I attended an information session at Guilford and saw a lot of students there that were in a similar situation as I was — juggling work, family and school,” he says, adding that he liked that the college accommodated nontraditional students by offering evening classes.

Although he is already an experienced detective, Burnett has found the education he received at Guilford invaluable, especially regarding his new duties. He graduated in 2009 and in January began working in computer forensics, a “growing field that changes very rapidly,” he says. “We spend about as much time reading and studying as we do forensics work.” A constitutional law class he took helped him understand more about how to research new legislation and where to find the information he needs.

In a class on police brutality, Burnett recalls looking at “how police departments operate, public perceptions of situations and how they come into play, and police culture,” as students analyzed different case studies. “The professors really want you to think hard about different situations,” he says. 

Assistant professor Will Pizio agrees. Pizio is chairman of justice and policy studies, the department that oversees the criminal justice major.

“The minute you step into that uniform, you go into full thinking mode and that never stops,” says Pizio, who is also a retired New York State Trooper. “For officers, there is a lot of psychology and sociology involved.” 

Using classroom discussions, personal experiences and videos, a laboratory situation is created where students analyze why certain decisions are made and the potential consequences of those decisions. Pizio hopes the program “prepares students to make more efficient, more just and more humane decisions” when working in the criminal justice field.

Not every criminal justice major has a background in the field, however. Classes often are a mix of traditional and nontraditional students, and Pizio says giving students with no experience in the field a realistic view of the criminal justice system is an important part of the program. 

“Students sometimes come into the program with a lot of misconceptions,” he says. They learn about some of those misconceptions by doing ride-alongs with Greensboro police officers, which are required in two classes. “They always come back seeing things differently after an eight-hour ride-along,” he says. 

For students who might end up working as probation officers, victims’ advocates, lawyers or police officers, understanding the reality of the criminal justice system is important as they become more familiar with the different facets of a complex system.

“It gives students a strong heads-up in what they will be doing on a day-to-day basis,” Pizio says.

Last month Burnett started a master’s degree program in cybersecurity, intelligence and forensics at Utica College in Utica, N.Y. He spent a week at the school in August, but will do most of his coursework online from the Triad, traveling to New York periodically to attend classes.

Once again, he’ll juggle school, work and family. But for Burnett, nothing is more valuable than an education, and one that helps him become a better police officer — a lesson he learned well at Guilford College.