College for me started off great. But as time went on i ran into issues being away from home and not having that support system for the first time. So i got an overnight job that paid a lot of money which did well for me financially but my grades took a huge hit. Now i’m down to a 2.2 gpa in my second year in a junior college and im slowly feeling demotivated, because i know a university wont accept me with a gpa that low. so i was thinking about enlisting in the air force to get a ccaf degree and transferring to a uni. A second start?
Are you ready to go to war?
How about if you take time off and work for awhile and try CC again? You can try and try and try as often as you like. This is not a race.
My nephew is in the Air Force so that he can take advantage of the GI Bill. If you are having trouble being away from home now, that’s not going to change in the AF, and in fact, you’ll likely get home even less often, since you’ll have no say in when or for how long you can go. If you have trouble staying motivated now, how do you figure you’ll do when being ordered to perform tasks you’ve no interest in doing , but must or be disciplined. Are you ready to end up with a job you don’t want, on a shift you don’t want, eating only when you’re told, taking breaks, if at all, only when you’re told, etc.? And let’s not minimize the fact you could be sent to war.
My nephew dreamed of the AF from the time he was a little kid. He dreamed of Texas and being sent to exotic places, doing secret-level spy work. He hated Texas, is assigned to a base in the middle of nowhere right now, misses his New England home desperately, and was given a job (MOS?) that is rather far from secret agent stuff. He’s happy enough, but it’s nothing like he expected at all. You need to be prepared for that.
I would take time off and regroup. The CC will always be there and there might be other CC’s where you’d do better. I have a young friend who finally made it to college at 25 after two previous tries, and she is thriving. I’d stop and reevaluate before joining the military if you’re not happy being away from home and are not motivated. The AF won’t care about either, and you don’t get to just leave if you’re not happy.
My husband took this route. He was demotivated in college, so he decided to drop out and join the Air Force. He loved his AF experience, traveled around the world, and learned valuable skills. He did not earn a CCAF degree (more about that in a minute), but after he served four years he used his GI Bill benefits to go back to undergrad and finish his bachelor’s degree.
So this is a situation that can work, but you have to think very carefully before you do this. It’s not a panacea, and can make things far worse.
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As was already mentioned, the Air Force (or any branch of the military) is not going to solve issues of missing home or not having a support system. Your basic training (BMT) and tech school locations are very likely to be quite far from home (unless your family happens to live in or near Lackland AFB, and even then you’ll only be there for 8 weeks and you won’t see them anyway!), and you can’t call home or leave or most of BMT. Even once you finish your training, you can only go home when you get leave. And even though you theoretically get 30 days of leave a year, you have to wait until you’re allowed to go home - which may or may not include certain holidays. My husband missed several holidays with me and his family, including a Thanksgiving and Christmas in which he was deployed in the Middle East and some holidays he simply had to work through because he was essential personnel. So if missing home is what’s stressing you out, don’t drop out and join the military. It won’t fix that.
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Getting your CCAF degree may be more difficult than you’d imagine, depending on your job in the military. My husband did aircraft maintenance, meaning he often worked 48 hours a week and his shift was constantly changing (9-5 for one month, then 11 pm -7 am another, then 3 pm to 11 pm a third, then back to 9 to 5…) My husband already came in with many credits from his first attempt at college, so the CCAF degree wasn’t worth as much to him, but I remember there being significant obstacles to him actually completing the AAS from CCAF while he was there. You might want to check into what the requirements are for this.
Also, it wouldn’t really be a ‘second start,’ if you will. When you transfer to another college they will still want your transcripts from your current place. Besides, at most schools you can only transfer in 60 credits, so if you already have close to that then earning additional ones through CCAF may not be worth as much for you.
In other words, don’t enlist in the Air Force because you want a CCAF degree and the chance to transfer to a uni - enlist in the Air Force only if you truly want to serve in the Air Force. It could be a great experience for you. But it’s got to be one you choose for what it is.
@juillet that’s the job my nephews has! He often posts about the crazy work schedule and how changeable it is and the long hours. That’s exactly what I was thinking about when I responded to the OP. At this time, he’s not even trying to take classes.
@sseamom - Yes, my husband decided the same thing when he was in. He was going to try to use his TAP to take a class here and there and realized it simply was not realistic for him to do so.