CANTON — Bethan Browning thought she wanted to be a sports medicine major when she attended Cherokee High School, but the 22-year-old has found her calling in the field of criminal justice.

Browning graduated Tuesday with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and a minor in statistics from Kennesaw State University.

“After I took a social work class in college, I realized I wanted to be on the law enforcement side of things,” Browning said.

The Canton resident will begin her job as a criminal analyst with the Georgia Governor’s Office of Consumer Protection on Dec. 20.

Browning said her academic adviser helped her get an internship with the organization in April, which eventually turned into contract work in August and then a full-time job offer.

“Job stability is something that’s rare to find in this economy,” Browning said, adding that was something she sought out for her career.

She credits her teacher and mentor, Jennifer McMahon-Howard, for helping her realize her strengths in her chosen field.

“She told me that in order to excel in criminal justice, I had to find one thing that stands out about me,” Browning said. “For me, it was statistics.”

In her new job, Browning said she will work with a lot of numbers and developing patterns, a good fit for her statistics background.

Even though it’s a lot of number crunching, Browning said her job is still exciting.

“My job is different every day, and everything is always changing,” she said.

Mostly, Browning said she will work on cases that deal with identity theft and fraudulent computer schemes.

“For it to be a state issue, there has to be a high amount of victims and high dollar loss,” she said.

The Office of Consumer Protection then goes through all of the compiled data to figure out who is participating in the fraudulent activity, Browning said. They then work with partner agencies, including law enforcement that may go on to perform searches and arrests.

“The most rewarding part of my job is to give victims a chance to regain what they lost,” Browning said.

KSU is conducting ceremonies for each of its colleges this week at the Kennesaw State University Convocation Center. On Tuesday, the College of Humanities and Social Sciences had its ceremony at 2 p.m. and the ceremony for postgraduate students was held at 7 p.m. Today, Coles College of Business and Bagwell College of Education will hold their joint graduation ceremony at 10 a.m., and the ceremony for College of the Arts, WellStar College of Health and Human Services, College of Science and Mathematics and University College will be held at 3 p.m.