Makaylah Michel

I am most passionate about prison reform and helping remedy all disparities in the criminal justice system. I believe that everyone should have the chance to tell their story and be listened to before being permanently condemned from society. The only way to do that, though, is to be empathetic and provide a safe space for all individuals. 

While I lack professional experience in the criminal justice system, I have much experience interacting and communicating with people of all different backgrounds. Most of my professional experience are in restaurants as a server, but I believe many traits I gained from serving are transferable to other environments. To compare, both restaurants and professional environments are fast paced and require detail oriented workers, like myself. Moreover, it is important that workers have great communication skills to interact with clients and can work as a team to complete a mission. To conclude, though my professional experience specific to criminal justice is minimal, my three years of professional experience in serving and my specialized knowledge of the criminal justice system prepares me to quickly adapt to any new environment. 

I currently attend The College of New Jersey in Ewing, NJ. I am a criminology major on a pre-medical track. I have taken courses ranging from physics to sociology to philosophy, and by the end of the fall semester, I will have completed six specialized criminology courses; women in criminal justice, victimology, policing, judicature, criminological theories, and mental health and criminal justice. I currently have a 4.0 cumulative GPA and will have taken 70 credits by the end of Fall 2022.