My name is Ashley Nichols and I just finished the Human Services program. It’s a one-year
certificate program and I’m coming back in September to do Protection, Security and
Investigation. I applied for the Social Service Worker program
right after high school and I didn’t secure the funding but I did get accepted so I decided
to take some time off and train full-time and become a coach in Muay Thai.
Muay Thai kick-boxing is basically the national sport of Thailand and 110 countries are practicing
right now. It’s a really fast growing sport. You see it in mixed martial arts a lot. If
you’ve heard of UFC, Muay Thai is one of the practice sports in the UFC or mixed martial
arts. It’s the science of eight limbs so we use boxing, kneeing, elbowing and kicking.
Like a chess game, kind of like a boxing match. After about three years of that I won the
World Championships in 2011 and I decided it was time to challenge myself and try something
different. Education has always been in the back of my mind as I was going through training.
So I applied for the Human Services program. I heard it was a one-year and it was a foundation
for a lot of programs here. With the accomplishments that I have received
over the years with Muay Thai, it’s given me a lot of confidence; it actually taught
me how to make short-term and long-term goals through sport..different goals that I would
set out to achieve. That’s the goal to complete PSI (Protection,
Security and Investigation), do the Community and Criminal Justice degree program and then
after that work in Interventions or Diversions for people who are either struggling with
coming into confrontation with the law or have already come into contact with the law
and are trying to rebuild their lives and stuff. That’s where I want to work.
I believe a huge part of my motivation to be in law enforcement is connected with my
training. It’s given me the confidence, the discipline and the motivation to want
to be involved in law enforcement. What you do here….counts out there.
