Originally Posted by: MoisLete 
What I find most interesting about this years announcement is that they are now requiring a MASTERS degree if you are a criminal justice major. It looks like damn near every other field can still be a bachelor's degree... I guess what people say (that CJ is the worst major if you are trying to work for the FBI) might be true. I guess this is a good way of weeding out massive numbers of CJ applicants.....
Does this really upset any other CJ majors? They don't specifically call out any other major in this way. This is really just idiotic. I know that "dumb CJ major" is a stigma at a lot of schools, but just because someone is a CJ major doesn't mean they are an idiot.
I mean the more I think about it... "bachelor's degree in political science, economics, chemistry, biology, physics, cyber, etc. No problem. Criminology/Criminal Justice? Better be a masters" lol. Just dumb. You know, maybe this agency really is all for show with idiotic moves like this one. Makes you wonder if they are really as elite as the public relations department wants you to think.
Well, I guess us CJ majors with ONLY an undergraduate degree in CJ are out of the picture from this point. Time to go take out another 50K in student loans to get the masters to get an IA job starting at 37K (or 45K with a masters and a $100K student loan lol... and they wonder why they have trouble recruiting people....)
I'm not all too surprised. From what I've seen they've been veering people away from pursuing Criminal Justice degrees for a while. I believe the issue is that it makes the applicant too "one note"; they want individuals who have proven to have knowledge or skills in other areas that they aren't going to be trained at Quantico.
And of course generalized statements like "CJ majors are idiots" aren't true, but you can't really blame the agency too much for wanting a more diverse educational background. You aren't just applying for a standard law enforcement role like a city police officer. As part of the FBI you're going to be handling national issues that span a multitude of different fields.
For instance a Computer Science major can be placed in application development, cryptography, reverse engineering, digital forensics, malware analysis, systems administration, network administration, all other things cybersecurity related: hacking or defending, ...
I don't think they have issues with IA hiring, because the last IA opening was in 2018 and they completely skipped over 2019.
Their SA hiring shortage is mainly due to low pay for STEM/Law/Accounting/etc. majors as well as the lengthy process and fitness test. Some people don't want to take a pay cut, or get in shape, or be relocated, or work 50 hours, etc. which is understandable.
In any case you are still eligible to apply to be a Special Agent because they don't specify major requirements (only experience), so maybe try for that instead.