Joe Clare
Research Associate, Crime Research Centre, The University of Western Australia
B.Cog.Sci (Honours) 2000; Ph.D 2004.

I decided to go to university initially because I thought this would improve my chances of being accepted into the Federal Police, and had no intention of doing any study beyond my three-year Bachelor degree. When I'd completed this, I still wanted to join the Police but was also enjoying studying, so I decided to continue into a fourth year. After Honours came a Ph.D., which was, once again, a course of action I had no intention of undertaking when I first entered UWA.

The reason my goals kept changing was due I think to the development of my understanding of possibilities for employment that I had no knowledge of before. As my awareness increased, my aspirations changed accordingly.

I have acquired some very valuable skills from my time at UWA, the most useful of which are the generic skills concerned with research design, data analysis, and critical thinking.

During my postgraduate studies I did casual work for a private research company, and was involved in undergraduate teaching within the School of Psychology at UWA. Towards the final stages of my Ph.D. I worked in the UWA Statistics Office as a planning officer, during which time an opportunity arose for me to become involved in a short term project in the Crime Research Centre. After completing this, I began working full time at the Centre.