Online college to offer degree in SWAT Science

A few years back due to the hit TV shows CSI many private, for-profit colleges began to offer Forensic Science degrees. The majority of these colleges were online programs, promising to make someone a skilled evidence technician via virtual education. Now that trend is shifting to tactical skills. For one college SWAT Science is their newest online degree.

SWAT Game

SWAT Game

Eastern Mayors College is a for-profit college started by a number of high profile Mayors from cities east of the Mississippi river. Their most popular programs include, Human Resource Management, Business/Marketing, Pre-Law, and Criminal Justice/Forensic Science. The online offerings at Eastern Mayors College have been hailed for innovative technological design. The curriculum molded by leading experts in the field, versus some stuffy old PhD with zero real world experience.

Now they are announcing in Fall of 2014 EMC will push the online learning environment to a new edge. SWAT Science will be offered as an emphasis to the Criminal Justice Bachelors degree, and also SWAT Science will be a brand new full Masters degree level program.

“We at EMC like to keep on the cutting edge. Tactical response has become the new model for policing. As such we want to make sure we are training our students to be tactical experts to meet the demands of modern police agencies.”

EMC said their main goal was to create a Maters degree for officers looking for promotional opportunities. Officers who need to know both the tactics of SWAT operations, and also the tenets of good leadership.

“We built simulated SWAT environment using the Havok Video Game engine. This is the same system used to produce ‘Class A’ video games like Halo 4, Saints Row 4, Assassins Creed 3, and The Last of Us. Students will have to both play missions alone and in groups via multiplayer. In multiplayer a leader is assigned to guide other real people through this virtual SWAT callout.”

The administration at EMC originally set out to only create this as a MS degree option. Quickly they realized that they could use what they have developed to create some elective credits for undergraduates.

“What we do is mix our undergrad students and graduate students in the online multiplayer environment. The kids working on their BS degrees are the SWAT team, and the people working on their MS degrees are the leadership. So we naturally are developing leaders by having a seasoned veteran working with complete newbies.”

Staff at EMC says they have been receiving flak from other universities about if tactical skills can be learned online. EMC administration is very quick to point out reports from the Department of defense that show kids who play first person shooter games are superior soldiers compared to peers who are not gamers. So EMC is gambling that gamers will be the next generation of stand out cop.

About Staff

The staff at the CallTheCops are all people who now or at one time did work as police, firefighters, in EMS and even dispatch.