<p>I'm currently in the second semester of my freshman year at the community college in my city. Im pursuing an electrical engineering degree and I plan to transfer to UCSD or UCSB after I'm done with my major preparation classes and requirements. I'm also interested in joining the air national guard which means I would go 1 weekend a month, two weeks a year, and I was thinking of going to basic training this summer before my sophomore year. I will keep my current part time job but work less hours at about 10-15 hours a week. I want to know if it would be too much for me to handle or should I just join after I get my degree and join as an officer?</p>
<p>Why don’t you just do ROTC and then you would get a stipend and not have to work? You would have a cadre that would more than likely all be some sort of engineering majors and you would all be getting through it together.</p>
<p>What chucktown said. Military tends to love engineering majors. If you insist, you can likely do it all. The risk is if you get called to active duty. Could be national emergency, could be just a big flood. Oh…what chucktown said.</p>
<p>I’ll probably start looking into it, I’m going to the recruiting office and hopefully they’ll give me more information on that. Because the only problem I had with joining the national guard was if I got deployed in the middle of a semester and wouldn’t be able to finish or something. I didn’t know how that would turn out. Just as torveau said a flood or any national disaster of some sort.</p>
<p>Whoa whoa whoa, the recruiter will not give you any great info about ROTC. He honestly probably doesn’t know much. Hell, they will probably try to steer you away from it. He has one goal, to get you to enlist. Contact the ROTC department at your school of choice and talk to someone in the AFROTC there. This would be a full time commitment after college in the air force, but school and living would be paid for, and you would have a guaranteed, not too shabby, job after college.</p>
<p>ROTC will not pay for your tuition unless they give you a scholarship. Since you are already in college, but not in ROTC, obtaining such a scholarship is rather difficult. In fact, I am almost certain that the window has closed for getting it for your sophomore year. However you can enroll in ROTC without a scholarship (If you enroll in ROTC in the fall, it might be possible to gain a scholarship for second semester of sophomore year). You would get a stipend during your junior and senior years, even without the scholarship. </p>
<p>Without that scholarship you will not be guaranteed a regular officer’s commission, and thus not guaranteed a job in the military. However, you would likely be commissioned in the reserves (or guard) and get a civilian job.</p>
<p>For what it is worth, the Navy needs and values engineering more than does the Air Force. And, of course, the Navy has a few pilots too! Both NROTC and AFROTC are available at UCSD, while UCSB only offers AFROTC. However, take note that your ROTC classes would not be conducted on campus at either school. You would have to travel to a different university (University of San Diego, San Diego State, or UCLA) for most ROTC activities.</p>