It might be hard for us to imagine not having a woman police officer or a woman detective, but Nadeen Alsayat says she’ll be the first woman in Saudi Arabia to do police work when she goes back home next month.

“I would like to work with criminals,” Alsayat said with a big smile on her face.

In 2010, she and her husband decided to expand their education in America. She recently graduated with a master’s degree in criminal justice from CU Denver.

Alsayat says she wasn’t sure, at first, if she would be able to use her degree at home.

“In Saudi Arabia, our government does not allow the woman to work in dangerous jobs, so we don’t have criminal justice for female[s,]” she said. “Now, the government changed their minds. They’re looking to have a female in criminal justice, because in our culture in Saudi Arabia, the public places are separated, female together and male together. When they have a female crime, the detective[s] are male who interview these criminals. The government realize[d] that they should have female detective[s] to interview these female criminals.”

Alsayat said there are women detectives studying in Saudi Arabia to become detectives, but those women will not be graduating until this summer, making Alsayat the first. She’s already had a couple of job offers and can’t wait to go home.

“I feel this is my turn to serve my country, to try to improve my country with experiences I got from the United States and from the degree,” she said.

Alsayat recently finished an internship with the Commerce City Police Department.

“Sometimes when I look at the pictures I took with the detectives, with the officers, I couldn’t imagine I did it,” she said. “To be honest, the sixmonths I spent inside the police department, I think are the best days I spent in the United States.”

She said the hardest part of that internship was when officers asked her to be serious and have a straight face during interviews. Alsayat said she was so excited to be doing the work. She couldn’t wipe a smile off her face.

“I was so happy, and when I’m happy I just keep smiling and laughing,” she said. “They asked me to have a serious face like police officers, but I couldn’t imagine that I’m working with police.”