Chapters

• 0:00 Who is Addison Egan?
• 3:16 Addison's journey to picking a college
• 5:53 Addison's transition to a Criminal Justice major
• 7:17 The impact of connecting with professors at Quinnipiac
• 9:47 Experiential Learning opportunities in Quinnipiac's Criminal Justice program
• 12:27 Addison's Study Abroad experience in Ireland
• 15:05 The support Quinnipiac provides for Ireland Study Abroad students
• 16:20 Addison's advice to students interested in studying Criminal Justice

Transcript

Joel Vanner: Hello, and welcome to ”Who Are You?,” the bobcats you know, the stories you don't. I'm your host Joel Vanner inside the podcast studio at Quinnipiac University School of Communications, and I'm joined today by my guest, Addison Egan. Addison, welcome to the show. 

Addison Egan: Hi. Thank you for having me. 

Joel Vanner: It's great to have you on the show Addison. So we know your name, Addison Egan. You're from Pennsylvania. But to get started, tell me, who are you. 

Addison Egan: I'm a double major in criminal justice and psychology. And I guess I'm just somebody always looking for a new adventure and always looking to meet new people and new experiences. 

Joel Vanner: Okay, good answer. We're going to unpack that a little bit and learn about your journey to Quinnipiac. And before we do that, though, we need to learn more about Addison. So growing up in Pennsylvania, you are a middle child, correct. You are the middle child. What were you interested in growing up? What were you passionate about? 

Addison Egan: I was passionate about, honestly, everything. I was doing every single activity known to man. My parents always valued extracurriculars. So I know academics are always the big one that parents push, but I think extracurriculars are really a big one in my household. My sister, my brother and I all do multiple sports. So I played basketball. I did track, I did lacrosse. I did field hockey. 

Joel Vanner: What was your favorite sport? 

Addison Egan: Probably field hockey. But, I mean, I think there was that common, like, I loved team sports and team bonding, and I think it kind of I think it showed me that I valued working with people and trying to overcome a common conflict that we had, and I just love speaking with people and working with people. 

Joel Vanner: And in concert with sports, you also were very interested in Broadway musical theater, right? 

Addison Egan: Yes, I loved Broadway. I actually thought I wanted to do that when I was, I guess, older, but Broadway was something that I loved. I love singing, dancing. I guess, once again, I loved working with people and relying on my partners in a dance and vocal, like, trying to harmonize with the people around me. I just absolutely loved being with the people around. 

Joel Vanner: Between all of the sports you played, involvement in theater and other extracurriculars, when did you find time for a break? And what did you do in those break moments? 

Addison Egan: So I guess those breaks would be taking me back to New England and to western Massachusetts, where my grandparents live in the Berkshires. And my only time to have a break was sitting on the couch and watching Law & Order: SVU and CSI: NY. 

Joel Vanner: At the young age of nine or so. 

Addison Egan: Yeah. Yeah. That was my time to be with them, and I think criminal justice has a special place in my heart because they have a special place in my heart, and they kind of ingrained it in my brain at such a young age, yeah. 

Joel Vanner: And those are the moments you shared. 

Addison Egan: Yeah. 

Joel Vanner: So, graduating high school or about to graduate high school? So you're going on the college search tour, probably touring a number of schools. What drew you to come to Quinnipiac and check out what we have to offer? 

Addison Egan: So, I guess more broadly, I wanted to definitely go north to New England obviously my grandparents are from there. And I guess Quinnipiac specifically, looking at pictures online, they are absolutely beautiful. And my mom actually applied here when she was younger. So she was like, maybe just keep it. Like, you don't have to go there, but just look. And then when I actually decided to tour here, it was pouring rain and I knew that I absolutely loved it because if you love it during a monsoon, then you're going to love it on a normal day. But even during some of the academic exploration days and just being able to talk to professors and some of the students here, I was very transparent with them about I love the idea of investigation and SVU, CSI-type things where I can go run into a crime scene and have no care in the world about leaving your DNA behind. 

Joel Vanner: Referencing kind of what you saw at your grandparents' house during your leisure time. 

Addison Egan: This was the only school that was very transparent with me that that is not what the criminal justice field is like, rather than that scaring me. I valued that they were honest with me. Some of the other schools were like, Yeah, you can get your degree in this and you can be a crime scene investigator and you don't need to go through the police academy or anything. That's not the case. And this was the only school that was like, We want if you are going to come here, I want you to be able to go into a career after school, and they just didn't want my money. They wanted they wanted to value me as a student and they wanted to make sure that I was prepared for the real world. 

Joel Vanner: And this was all at one of the academic exploration days where you meet with faculty and students and programs that you're interested in school leaders as well. So the transparency, I think, is what you're getting at the criminal justice program here had with you while discussing your interests to help lead you on the right path and set that basic understanding for what it actually is. So when it came time to actually deciding on a college, you know, you picked Quinnipiac and you came in as a criminal justice major, what was that transition like from maybe theory and thought from TV to the conversation you had to now I'm actually getting started, right, in my coursework? What was that transition like for you? 

Addison Egan: Yeah, so I guess I started out where every criminal justice freshman starts out in CJ 101. And I think some of the first teachings that they tell you is that CSI effect, which like watching TV shows, that is not the real world, and these are real lives at stake and being able to bring in a bunch of public speakers into class and being able to hear about, like, kind of mental health struggles or real life situations that I can't even fathom. I just think it put it into perspective that TV shows don't necessarily shape the field, and I think a lot of students kind of think that they are. But but they're not. 

Joel Vanner: Yeah. And here at Quinnipiac, you also have an academic advisor who can help tailor your courses in your program according to, you know, your interests and what areas maybe you want to drill down more in. Your advisor, Professor Alan Bruce, who was on a previous episode of this podcast, you had an interesting experience as a freshman with him because you took one of his 300-level courses, which is. Maybe a little bit uncharacteristic for a first-year student to be in a 300-level course, but he saw something in you, right, from when he met you early on. What was that experience like connecting with Professor Bruce right off the bat? 

Addison Egan: Yeah. I mean, Professor Bruce was my advisor, and I kind of I told him right off the bat. I don't necessarily know what I want to do. And he was like, That's okay. That's probably scary for you to admit that, right? Yeah, yeah. And he was like, That's totally okay. Why don't we narrow down? Like, let's test the waters with a bunch of different things. And, he got me involved in the 300-level class, which was Crime and Media, which I absolutely loved. And I guess it put me into perspective that media shapes our thoughts like CSI: NY shapes how I view the criminal justice field. And I guess he also introduced me to the world of pardons, which I guess Connecticut is a little different, and they do it through a board rather than a lot of other states, which is through a governor, through Pennsylvania, it's a governor. So he kind of taught me about that and I never even knew anything about that. And so he started this program that was a pardons coaching clinic. And I was one of the first students that got a chance to do that with him. And he was like, If you like it, you like it. If you don't don't you know that this is not the field that  

Joel Vanner: It’s an experiential learning opportunity. 

Addison Egan: Yeah. Obviously, it touched that I wanted to be working with people. So I was able to work with pardon applicants to help them go through their pardon applications, and I was able to hear their stories and understand who they are. And I did really, really enjoy it, and he was like, Okay, check. This is a check on the list. Now let's go and try something new. And yeah, we've been working with each other, trying to figure out what works best with me and he always believed in me and that I was a very hardworking student right from the beginning that I met him. 

Joel Vanner: What other experiential learning opportunities and internships have you been able to take part in during your time in the criminal justice program? It sounds like they bring a lot of, like you said, guest speakers and real life examples right into the classroom. But you've had some interesting experiences going outside of the classroom and getting that experience yourself. What are some of the experiences you've had so far? 

Addison Egan: So I guess some of the other experiences would I guess I'll bring in, Professor Pozlski. And she actually introduced me to an internship opportunity with the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights. And I think Professor Bruce, he kind of told her my story and was she doesn't necessarily know what field she wants to go into. And I think Professor P brought me under her wing and was like, Let me go through this internship opportunity with her. Let's test out a government role. So I was able to work as an investigator with the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights as a sophomore, which right off the bat, she was like, it's okay if you don't get it. But you'll get the experience of applying for an internship. It is early, and there are students that are older than you and do have more experience. But she's like, Just try this out. Just try it. Yeah. She's like, I believe in you, and I think that this could be a good fit for you. So I ended up getting it. Somehow, I did. And I was able to work with individuals who had violations of their civil rights, and I was able to kind of investigate how they happened, if they happened. And yeah. 

Joel Vanner: And you were a sophomore internship. So having had these experiences so early in your college career, just as a sophomore, you were with the New Jersey Division of Civil Rights. How have those helped refine who you are and what you're interested in, and maybe lead to other opportunities while you're still here at Quinnipiac. 

Addison Egan: In doing the internship, um it didn't have as much of an impact as the pardons one did. I really enjoyed the pardons work. I loved what I was doing. However, it just was not something that I necessarily wanted to pursue after college, and that was the whole point of it. So I'm glad that it worked out the way that it did. And it did give me the opportunity to kind of get it out of the way so that I could have more time to take different classes. I could focus on new ideas and new passions that I had. And it also allowed me to study abroad.  

Joel Vanner: You studied abroad? Where did you go? 

Addison Egan: I went to Cork, Ireland, and I don't think if I waited to do an internship, I'm not sure if I would have wanted to go abroad, but I felt like I was at ease enough to take the step to go abroad, and I absolutely loved it. 

Joel Vanner: What were some of the highlights of your experience abroad in Ireland? 

Addison Egan: I think the culture, it's not just drinking, as a lot of people might think, but there was I was just peaceful. And I think a lot of times in American culture, it's everybody wants to be better than the next person. And I think in Ireland, I was able to just chill and talk about who I want to be and who they want to be. And it wasn't revolved around power and money. I just I was easy. 

Joel Vanner: In the classes you took while you were abroad, too, we were talking about them before the show. The classmates that you had were either from Ireland or other countries. And you had rich discussions about the American criminal justice system and the Irish criminal justice system, et cetera. What was that experience like learning from others like that while you were abroad while also learning in a different environment? 

Addison Egan: Yeah, so I guess specifically, my victimology class was in Ireland, and we would be discussing guns in class. And obviously, she would go and she's like, Where's my American students? And I would raise my hand, and she would go, So what's it like having guns be legalized in America 'cause it's not here. And the students would be like, What do you mean it's legalized there? Like, I can't imagine life like that. I'm like, Well, actually, these are the Second Amendment rights here. They're built into being an American. And it was very interesting to see how their, I guess, experiences with Northern Ireland and, they kind of have rich history there. I never knew anything about Northern Ireland, so I guess experiencing that class kind of opened the door to Irish history in a way that I never thought. 

Joel Vanner: And it gave you a global perspective that expands beyond the TV shows you watch and maybe beyond what you would have experienced in class here at Quinnipiac by doing that study abroad experience. When you were abroad, there was also support while you were there from Quinnipiac. What was that support like? Maybe adjusting to a new country and just maybe getting to know those that you traveled with that maybe you weren't friends with before you left? 

Addison Egan: Yeah, so we actually had the sweetest lady that was there. Her name was Mary. And if I had any issues at all in Ireland, she was a she's hired by Quinnipiac, and she lives in Ireland, and she is like, if there's any issue at all, I will bake you scones and you can come over and talk about it. And we got lunch every single week together as a group with all the students there. I never felt like, nervous to try new things or nervous to talk about anything 'cause I knew if I did have an issue, she was right behind me. 

Joel Vanner: Um you had that support as you explored this new opportunity. Well, speaking of nerves, something that people may not know about you as you sing the national anthem at our hockey game that is very nerve racking. So I'm sure you can overcome anything. But that's an awesome exercise of maybe your theater and other skills that you found here, able to do at Quinnipiac. 

Addison Egan: Yes, for sure. 

Joel Vanner: Looking back on your time here so far, what advice would you give other students who maybe are interested in a career in criminal justice and are maybe resonating with the things that you are saying, but maybe also have that mindset that you had before you talked on that academic exploration day to our criminal justice department. 

Addison Egan: I think the people that know me know my personality, and sometimes I'll play a game with them, and I'll be like, What do you think I'm studying? And everyone always says, early education or a teacher, or they rattle off everything but criminal justice. And then when I say, Oh, it's criminal justice, they're like, Oh, I would never think that about you. I think my advice would be don't let the people around you tell you what field that you should be in. Obviously, work towards your advantages if you're bubbly and you love to talk to people, go into a field that you're able to talk to people, but you can shift it to whatever field that you want to be. And in my case, that was a criminal justice related field. 

Joel Vanner: I think the mentorship that you've told throughout this episode, it's unlocked different aspects of you, right? Because the faculty here maybe saw something in you knew of an opportunity that maybe you would like to take advantage of. So they brought that to you, and then you acted on that and got that experience. 

Addison Egan: Yeah, definitely. 

Joel Vanner: Addison, thank you so much for joining me on the show. It was great to have you on and hear about your story here at Quinnipiac. 

Addison Egan: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. 

Joel Vanner: If you enjoy today's episode, be sure to subscribe and share and find other episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube. Until next time when I ask my next guest, who are you? I'm Joel Vanner. Bye for now.