Senior Trever Eymard spent his summer immersing himself in the FBI’s New Orleans district field office through its 2014 Citizens’ Academy. 

“They take you through what that field office does and what the greater mission of the FBI is, everything from white collar crime and reviewing past cases that they’ve worked on to the last day we spent about an hour blowing stuff up at Camp Hilary,” Eymard said. 

The program’s selection process was nomination-based. Eymard said that his Tulane education was an advantage.

“I certainly think that the fact that I was a Tulane student went a long way,” Eymard said. “I took with me the reputation … of the university when I walked in to the field office for the first time, so getting through that nomination process and having that very deeply-rooted community support was certainly important.”

Eymard said he was the youngest of a group of working professionals. 

“I was the only university student in the group,” Eymard said. “There were about 30 of us. For the most part it’s business and industry leaders from around the city.”

As many students who complete internships find, Eymard, a student of the Masters of Accounting program, said his experience has changed his post-graduate aspirations. 

“After speaking with a lot of the agents in white collar, I’d love to take the information that I’m learning at Tulane and the degree that I’ll hold and put it to work for the public good,” Eymard said.

Eymard was surprised by how committed the FBI is to the local community.

“It was really interesting to me to find out how community-focused they are, you sort of think of it almost like the ‘G-men’ really, where they’re kind of put-off from the community,” Eymard said. “They really are a very involved organization on the community level and it was refreshing to experience that. Every agent I came into contact with was very much focused on their job in the sense that they wanted to make the community, the state and the nation a safer place and a better place.” 

Eymard gave some advice for students interested in the FBI. 

“Reach out to the field office, and figure out if there are any opportunities in terms of learning more about the Bureau and how that might translate into internships or employment or just a learning experience like I went through,” Eymard said. 

Eymard said he hopes to share his experience with the greater Tulane community.

“I think that one of the great things I can take away from the experience and something that I was challenged to do by the agents that I came into contact with was to sort of act as an ambassador for the Bureau and the community and educate people about what they do,” Eymard said.