Thursday, September 1, 2011

Citizen's Academy

Every year where I live the city puts on a Citizen's Academy. It's a chance for the citizens of the the city to get a look behind the scenes at how the city works. People are picked through an application process. There is no charge and the city officials who participate donate their time. And to give you an idea if how big of a deal that is this class meets every Tuesday night from 6-9pm for 11 weeks.
Since I'm going for my Bachelors in Criminal Justice I thought it would be a good opportunity.
I had my first class this past Tuesday night. It being the first class I assumed it would not last the entire 3 hours but I was wrong! We spent a short amount of time going over what we will be doing as well as specific things that are pertinent to certain city departments. I was also under the impression, at least until I saw the agenda, that we would be sitting around for 3 hours listening to someone talk. Well that isn't true either. After we went through the class's schedule we jumped right into our first session! It was the Parks & Rec Department. We event took a field trip to the oldest cemetery in town and learned about some of the different families that helped found it. We also learned about what kind of time it takes to keep up a cemetery as well as all the parks, beaches, ball diamonds, and medians that are in our town. It was really interesting! We even played a game at the end of the night. It was fun and I had a hard time winding down when I got home.
Next week is Fire Department. We will be getting our own bunker gear to use for the next 3 weeks. We will also be learning some basic firefighting and EMS skills. I'll do another post after our next class and let you know how it went!

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