Hello, I am applying for the NROTC scholarship. If I do earn the scholarship, would I have the opportunity to study abroad for a semester? Does this depend on the different units/battalions? Also during the summer, would I have time to do internships at firms because I read that there was a summer cruise training program?
If you enter the Navy and are assigned duty on a ship, there is a good chance that you will visit places abroad.
Study abroad under NROTC is very, very rare. Unicorn rare. If you want to succeed in NROTC it has to be your #1 goal in life to serve as a Navy officer. If not, you won’t make it through the program and get your commission. My son’s unit had 25± midshipmen start. 4 were commissioned. The rest dropped or were told to leave for grades, performance, disciplinary, desire, work ethic, etc. it was fairly easy to tell by talking to them which would succeed and which would not. Asking about study abroad and internships sets off my alarm bells.
Forget about internships too. You would have summer cruise every summer. Duration and location varies (except for CORTRAMID). The Navy determines where and when. You can state your preference, but no guarantees at all. Needs of the Navy comes first. Always.
NROTC is a unit. Not a battalion.
It’s been a while, but I know someone who was able to study abroad in NROTC. He essentially took a year off of NROTC, paid for the year study abroad on his own, and then came back and picked up where he’d left off, graduated in five years and commissioned into the Navy.
That’s the unicorn situation. Extremely rare.
Ok thank you so much. I have a much better picture now!
My son does AFROTC, so it’s not the same but very similar. Studying abroad is one thing he cannot do, not that he had strong desire to do so anyway. He was just aware of that because his best buddy in college of engineering studied semester abroad during his sophomore year.
They have training between sophomore and junior year, which definitely messed up his internship offer. He ended up declining it as his tour ended up in the middle of the summer.
He loves it though - it’s exactly what he wants to do, he has a guaranteed job after graduation, he is not stressing about internships or finding a job. It really depends on what’s important to you.
I’m a few months behind on this, but wanted to add in my experience as I am currently a midshipmen on scholarship at an NROTC unit. At my unit, it is very common for students to study abroad. I would say about a third of our battalion studies abroad at some point during their 4 years. Just in my class year, roughly 10 of us will be studying abroad next fall. I’m deciding between Spain and Sweden, a lot of my fellow mids are heading to New Zealand or Australia, and there are others considering Ireland, Oman, South Africa, etc. As for internships during the summer, it depends on the internship. Summer cruises generally last around a month, sometimes less, so if you can plan an internship around that, you’re free to go for it. Another great opportunity to look at for the summers is Project GO, which is a program funded by the DoD that takes ROTC students around the world to learn critical languages. This is also something a lot of midshipmen in my unit do, with some of my good friends spending their summers in places like Estonia, India, Taiwan, or Tanzania.
At my unit, we’re encouraged to get as much global experience as possible! Travel is one of the best ways to learn not only about the world, but also about yourself.