Law enforcement has always been a career I've been interested in since my freshmen year of high school, and the reason that I did is that I have always wanted to be someone people can rely on for help, a dependable person; and how I started my path towards law enforcement was signing up for the San Diego Sheriff's Department Explorer Program, a youth volunteer program that allows you to help in community events and learn about the field hands-on by riding along with Deputies. So far, I have been with the program for 2-3 years and plan on doing it until I age out at 21 and possibly apply for the Sheriff's Department. Former Kern County Deputy Sheriff Troy Michael Braem was known to be a very charismatic person by his family and the community he served. He was a person you wanted to be around both during the good and bad times when life gets difficult; Deputy Braem has many of the attributes I would like if I do get into law enforcement. How I plan to impact the lives of those in my community as Officer Braem is to be the positive person Deputy Braem was when serving the people of my community; I want to be able to get out of my shell and be confident enough to get to know the people around me, especially in the college I go, I believe you cannot serve a community that you don't know, and the only way to serve said community is to simply get to know the people in it. As mentioned before, I try to learn as much as possible every time I go on ride-alongs in the Explorer program, more specifically, I try to learn about the people I can encounter, I understand that there will be people that will not be as cooperative or people who are not favorable of law enforcement, whether it's people who have a bad perception of them, or criminals. Knowing this, my goal to impact the lives of the community is to not only know the community but also to protect the community by going after those who can be dangerous to people. The person who inspired me to pursue a career in law enforcement, or at least explorer the career was my criminal justice teacher during my freshmen year of high school, Mr. Dan Settle. Mr. Settle is a former Deputy Sheriff for the San Diego Sheriff's Department, and throughout my years of high school, he was someone I could definitely rely on for help. Mr. Settle was the one who introduced me to the Sheriff's Explorer Program in the first place so that I could explore the career even further. Overall, without the help of Mr. Settle, I would not be where I am today, and for that, he is both my inspiration and the reason why I am pursuing a career in law enforcement.