Since you're planning far ahead for the exam, have a look at writing both Technician and General in the same session. I took (just) my Tech a few months ago and several people at the session did both. After studying for General I'm kicking myself for not doing it myself. There's a lot of overlap and a lot of it is pretty intuitive if you have a science background.
That said, a ham radio license can actually help legally with some listening.
Some US states have laws against having and/or using a scanner to monitor police or emergency services frequencies while driving. For example, in New York you cannot equip a motor vehicle with a receiver that can receive frequencies allocated for police use. There are similar laws in Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, and Minnesota.
The FCC, however, has ruled that Federal law preempts state laws in this area in the case of a licensed ham radio operator using a radio that can incidentally receive frequencies outside of the ham bands.
For example, I have a Kenwood TH-F6A [1], a handheld transceiver for the 144/220/440 MHz ham bands. In addition to those ham bands, it can also receive on 0.1 - 1300 MHz (minus some bands in there assigned to cell phones). Since I have an Extra class ham radio license, I can go ahead and listen to police frequencies that fall in that range even in my car in those five states.
They're free and they submit results digitally to the FCC rather than mailing them off to ARRL HQ, so you'll get your ticket in a day or 2 rather than 2 weeks.
