Any job in the field of forensic investigations requires a certain type of online or offline education, or to put it in other words, a viable forensics degree. There are special conditions that you need to meet before attending forensic programs, and some of them may not seem the fairest of all to an applicant. Did you know for instance that there are states where you will be discarded from getting a forensics degree if you smoke? A history of drug use or a criminal record also make one incompatible with a forensics job. Therefore, you need to know what to expect in order not to face rejection. Here are the sub-domains for which you can get a forensics degree.

The general areas of practice include forensic engineer, crime scene examiner, medical examiner, crime laboratory analyst, technical assistant and psychological assistance. The forensics degrees for the technical and psychological categories are a bit more special; thus, you will learn how to create psychological profiles and understand social science, or how to work with the polygraph or become a computer analyst. Besides the forensic education necessary for the job, other background academic studies are usually needed. Hence, besides the forensics degree you’ll need a degree in psychology, computer science and so on.

In terms of payment, it seems that a medical forensic degree brings most cash, although the challenges of such a career are superior to all the rest. Only the education takes more than seven years to complete with all the college and the forensic training afterwards. Degrees in biology and chemistry are supplementary to that in medicine, but still necessary under certain circumstances. Similar educational requirements are found with other jobs for which you need a forensics degree such as crime laboratory analyst or forensic odontologist. For laboratory work, a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, biology, biochemistry, mineralogy, botany, entomology, zoology or anthropology will be a condition depending on the kind of position you apply for.

Crime scene examiners and forensic engineers will face different forensic challenges. An engineer will deal a lot with fire investigations, injury cases or traffic accidents. The thing is that there are many similarities with the job of a crime scene analyst here. The wages for such jobs depend on the forensics degree you get, and the educational requirements usually refer to civil engineering, mechanical engineering or electrical engineering. Crime scene examiners are the ones with the most chaotic work schedule: they work whenever a crime takes place, you can’t fear work routine with such a profession but be prepared to come across lots of messy situations.