From career fair to career: O’Neill student makes connection that sparked internship, career in probation

As Alyssa Jones sat in a Marion County Probation appointment room in early 2024, she was focused on the person across the table. Their probation sentence was beginning, and she was asking questions, doing a risk assessment, talking through the expectations, and discussing the support she could provide along the way.

“Everybody’s going through something and not everyone comes from the same background,” she explains. “A lot of the people I saw felt like they’re stuck, like there were no other options than whatever they did to end up here. We were there to help them realize they do have other options.”

That desire to help was at the center of what Jones always wanted to do with her life.

“I wanted to find a career where I could help people, but I wasn’t really interested in medicine or fields like that,” she recalls.

She had, however, always been interested in criminal justice. After starting classes at O’Neill in 2019, she left in the spring of 2021, exhausted from the online classes of the pandemic and unsure of what she wanted to do with her degree.

“I knew I didn’t want to be a police officer, but I couldn’t figure out what I did want to do,” she says. “I didn’t know what my options were, so it felt like I was doing the work for nothing.”

The break helped her clear her head and come back with a renewed focus. She says a course on corrections helped her correct her career course and led her to O’Neill’s Community Safety Career Day—a critical connection point for her future.

“When I went to the career fair, I just saw so many other options within the criminal justice field,” she says. “It opened my eyes to so many more potential jobs.”

While she went to learn about corrections, she also met a supervisor for Marion County Probation. She admits she didn’t know much about it at the time but started asking about what careers in probation look like. The supervisor’s answer resonated with Jones.

“She said it was really just helping people, and that’s exactly what I wanted to do,” she says. “A light bulb went off and I realized I could help people make better choices that would improve their lives even if they’re going through challenges.”

That initial conversation led to an interview, then an internship, and then a first career for Jones.

After earning her Criminal Justice degree in May 2024, she was hired on in the same unit where she interned. That’s why she’s encouraging other students to branch out, attend career fairs, take on more internships, and take in what they learn during their O’Neill classes.

“I, at one point, had no idea what I was going to do and was really scared about trying to find a job out of college, especially when I didn’t know my options,” she admits. “I’m so glad I decided to attend Community Safety Career Day and found an internship I enjoyed and was successful in. I’m so grateful for that.”

That internship connected classroom lessons to the real world and helped her remember not only what she wanted to do but why. Because of those experiences, she was able to see the people sitting across from her not as numbers or statistics, but as real people who are capable of change.

“For some of them, we were the first people to support them, and tell them they can change—and some of them do,” she says proudly. “We might have been the first ones to say, ‘You can do better’ or ‘I believe in you.’ And that makes a difference.”