Anthony Persi is Headed to Law School
VTSU Castleton helped kindle his interest in criminal justice and hone in on his dream job
Anthony Persi was playing junior hockey in Boston as a high school student when he learned about then-Castleton University. A native of California, he had moved to the East Coast to hone his hockey skills with the goal of playing at the university level.
“I had heard nothing about Vermont State Castleton before I began researching possible next steps for hockey,” he said. “I got in touch with the coach at the time, Kyle Richards, and he took me on a tour. From the second I stepped on campus, it was pretty hard to beat. I’ve known nothing about Vermont my whole life, so seeing it for the first time was unbelievable—the scenic views, all the mountains, having it be such a quaint little town, but then having such a vibrant community.”
Of course, VTSU provided Anthony more than an opportunity to play hockey; he also found a plan of study that perfectly met his needs.
“I’ve always had an interest in law enforcement and the criminal justice world. I saw that VTSU had a very strong criminal justice program. So, before I even really enrolled, I knew that I wanted to be some sort of criminal justice or law enforcement-type major,” he related.
“Working with the Criminal Justice Department has been awesome. Your first couple of semesters are really introductory-based, because it’s such a wide system and there’s so much to learn about it. And then I kind of developed a passion through both the faculty and the coursework here; it made me really hone in on what I actually wanted to do,” he continued.
“I decided to go with the law route. So, I took classes as in constitutional law, law enforcement society, and the like,” he noted. ”The faculty also helped me with internships. I had a monumental internship the summer after my junior year. I was working with district attorneys and ADAs for a whole summer, kind of seeing their life. And after that, I knew it was exactly what I wanted to do, and I don’t think I would have had that opportunity if it wasn’t for the help of the faculty itself, plus the curriculum to prepare me for that internship,” he stressed
“I graduated here and I’m going to law school at Suffolk University for the next three years. I’m going to focus on criminal prosecution, explore the entry level jobs out of there,” he explained. “I hope to land in a district attorney’s office, working as an ADA and then seeing where life takes me as a whole. I hope to be a district attorney one day of a county, whether that’s in Massachusetts or back home in California.”
Remembering his years at Castleton, Anthony is glad he line up that first tour of the campus with the hockey coach.
“I’m happy I called this place home for four years,” he said.