<p>This is all very interesting and new to me. Thanks for all the information!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>First thing you need to know about the military, is that you may get to travel, but you won’t be independent.</p>
<p>sorghum is right. Also an often heard phrase in the military is “hurry up and wait”.
S1 graduated/commissioned in May but won’t begin his MOS school until Dec.<br>
Your moves are at the will and behest of the military.</p>
<p>Don’t assume any college degree will guarantee becoming an officer in the military - especially the Air Force. They can be somewhat fussy on which degrees they accept at particular times for officers and they’re not hurting for recruits. There are people with degrees who end up enlisting because they can’t be accepted as an officer right away. It’s wise to do the research first on this.</p>
<p>True the AF does need and want more technical majors. The Navy is also under the gun to commission more technical majors. The Army and Marines don’t give a hoot what your major is.</p>
<p>If you are in ROTC then you WILL Commission as an Officer.
If you are interested in Officer candidate school after graduation then you might not be accepted.
Enlisting doesn’t guarantee that you will become an officer - you still need to go to OCS (OTS etc.)</p>
<p>Do consider the branch of Armed Forces. Air Force and Navy are downsizing (esp AF) while Army and Marines are increasing and in need of Jr Officers.</p>
<p>What would you consider “technical majors”? Do you mean science and engineering?</p>
<p>Yes - Engineering and Computer Science.<br>
The AF is very technical and many officer jobs are technical as well - dealing with planes and computer systems.
Naval officers are generally on ships, subs, planes and technical degree is very useful to have.
The Army and Marines are more about leading people.</p>
<p>meteorology is another degree that I have read the Air Force is always interested in.</p>
<p>I would think certain foreign languages would also be in demand in the military. Arabic comes to mind. Perhaps Farsi. Any others?</p>
<p>I was ROTC (Navy) in '82. Back then the Navy was looking for technical degrees for everything but restricted line (i.e supply) to support a 600 ship Navy (thanks President Reagan!). In '82 we were in an economic downturn (much like now) and I knew several classmates who thought they would walk down to the recruiter and get commissions (I went to a four year military college) since the job outlook was bleak. The only guys who were successful had technical degrees (engineering and science). The others were offered the enlisted path and the possibility of applying for a commission at a later date. I would recommend talking to a recruiter to find out what the options are today. Get the latest info from those who know what the deal is right now. Good luck and I agree with other posters in saying that without a doubt serving in the military was the best thing in the world I could have done. You will not get the chance to have the kind of responsibility you will get in the miltary so soon after college.</p>
<p>P.S. How bad was the economy in 1982? The supply officer on my first submarine went to the Wharton school of business!</p>
<p>Foreign Languages:
For the ARMY ONLY - serving as a translator is an enlisted position. Enlisted personnel who are gifted in learning languages are sent to the DLI in Monterey to become fluent.</p>
<p>For the officer corps - The Army does value foreign languages, esp Arabic, Chinese and Farsi. It is not necessary, however. It may or may not have any impact on branch assignment upon commissioning.</p>
<p>If you need a foreign language the Army could send you to the Defense Language Institute.</p>
<p>Also, Army officers don’t really have to attend a boot camp/basic training. Newly minted ROTC and West Point 2nd Lts. attend BOLC (Basic Officer Leadership Course) II which is a combination of physical training and classroom training with ruck marches thrown in for fun. After completing BOLC II, they attend BOLC III which is the first training program for new officers that is branch-specific, i.e. Infantry, Quartermaster, etc. 2009 is the last year for BOLC II. It will be integrated into what is now BOLC III. BOLC I is the West Point or ROTC experience.</p>
<p>Hm, I don’t remember where I read that service academy graduates are commissioned higher than ROTC and OTS/OCS grads, but apparently it was wrong. The websites do say that they are commissioned as second lieutenants.</p>
<p>I know that the Air Force ROTC scholarship website has a list of languages that they are interested in – most are Asian language, Middle Eastern or East Asian.</p>
<p>Here are the languages that qualify for their Foreign Language Major classification in the scholarships:</p>
<p>Arabic
Azerbaijani
Bengali
Cambodian
Chinese (Mandarin or Cantonese)
Hausa
Hindi
Indonesian
Japanese
Kazakh
Kurdish
Malay
Middle East (Area of Studies)
Pashtu
Persian-Iranian/Persian-Afghan
Russian
Serbo-Croatian
Soviet Union (Area of Studies)
Swahili
Thai
Turkish
Uighur
Urdu/Punjabi
Uzbek
Vietnamese</p>
<p>Momoftwins, that’s not really true…those who do not go the ROTC route, but who choose to do Army Officer Candidate School (OCS) have to go to OCS for 12-weeks, which servces as a type of “basic training” for officers. Officer candidates with non-prior service have to attend Basic Combat Training first.</p>
<p>juillet,</p>
<p>Thanks for clarifying my post. I was referring to new officers commissioned from West Point and ROTC and didn’t include the OCS program.</p>
<p>Other Military options:
Consider the Reserves or the National Guard.
If you don’t want Active Duty you can enlist in the National Guard or Army Reserves and get lots of $$$ for school. In some cases it may be better than the ROTC scholarship and it’s not as competitive.<br>
If you do ROTC and are in the Guard and Reserves while in college then you are not deployable. You would graduate and be commissioned as an officer.</p>
<p>Also - the New GI Bill can be used for grad school, law school or med school. Three years of AD service over and above any ROTC commitment and you can earn 100% tuition plus E-5 pay.</p>
<p>^^re:GI Bill…S1 (just commissioned Navy thru NROTC) was told in a briefing on the GI Bill college benefits that if the service vet chose not to use his/her GI benefit that it could be passed down one of their children.</p>
<p>^^
yep. or spouse I believe, for now anyway. who knows what the rules will be down the road.</p>
<p>Nutridame, you said you are not very active. How would you feel about being pushed to be active during basic training? It would be early mornings, push ups, sit ups, running, etc. You also have to be within height and weight standards.</p>
<p>A lot of people think they’d like the military because they like to travel. Sometimes travel in the military means that you get stationed in North Dakota or Arizona. Sometimes it means Afghanistan. You would be far from independent as a military officer. It is a very structured life and one that is always under authority of one’s superior officers.</p>
<p>You could always sign up for ROTC at college to see how you’d like it. If it’s not for you, you can quit any time in the first 2 years, as someone here already said. If you are on ROTC scholarship, you only have 1 year to decide whether you will commit to a military obligation.</p>