Blog 2 - Summer Mentorship

Other people were at the workshop too! 

All varied in levels of education with the same goal to work in the forensic field. Above is a fellow student dusting for latent prints.

List the contact name, phone number, and organization of the person with whom you volunteered.

• Sheri Orellana
• 951-941-8385
• Forensic Training Unlimited

What qualified this person as an expert in your topic choice? 

• Sheri Orellana is highly qualified to be an expert on my topic choice. She has been a CSI for almost twenty years now for the City of Pomona. Ms.Orellana is a forensics instructor at Forensics Training Unlimited. She is the secretary for the Southern California Association of Fingerprint Officers. Also Ms.Orellana is the member of several groups such as the International Association for Identification and the Los Angeles Forensic Supervisors Group.

List three questions for further exploration now that you've completed your summer hours.  

1. What can an on scene crime investigator do to be prepared for trial?
2. What should an on scene crime investigator know to be prepared for the field they are in?
3. What is the most important factor when analyzing a  crime scene?

What is the most important thing you gained from this experience? Why?

• The most important thing I gained from this experience is a greater appreciation for people who want to pursue a career in the forensic field, and the actual subject itself. On scene crime investigation requires so much knowledge, precision, finess, and skill. If something goes wrong or you miss one detail, the case being investigated could go horribly wrong. The amount of recording that you need to do is extensive just so you can be prepared for standing on trial, while someone tries to degrade your work. All the hardwork that goes into this has given me an appreciation from this subject, and even a strong admiration for my mentor because she has done this for so long.

What is your senior project topic going to be?  How did mentorship help you make your decision?  Please explain.

• My senior project is going to be Crime Scene Investigation. Going into mentorship I was expecting and wanting to do something along the lines of lab work. I wanted the more behind the scenes part of forensics. However after taking a class to meet my mentor I realized that the on scene investigation part of forensics is really fun, and is definitely something I want to learn more about. The mentorship I completed was really engaging and sort of an eye opener. Before the hands on training of my mentorship my mentor did an extensive presentation on fingerprints, forensics, and sort of how it all fit into history making it relevant. It was interesting to take some of the things I learned in history class and realize how important it was to forensics. So  after discovering how science, history, and english (my favorite subjects) were incorporated into on scene crime investigation I realized  that this is definitely something I want to learn more about. Even further something I want to cover for my senior project.

Dusting can become very messy; I can still feel the powder in my nose!

At mentorship I worked with various powders to dust for prints. Some of which include magnetic (left), and the most commonly used one that's just called regular (right).

Mentorship Log Link