Rotc/Co-op

<p>If you are a member of the Navy ROTC on a national scholarship how are you able to manage co-oping and the summer cruise commitments you owe to the navy. Also, i assume the graduation time is 5 yrs if co-oping, how does the military feel about one adding another year to the undergraduate program?</p>

<p>You can do the four year coop or no coop or the five year plan. Either way it is doable and the Navy pays. Some degrees are only offered in the coop version though. With the four year coop, you get your freshman cruise and the the junior cruise in. You lose out on the sophomore cruise. The five year coop lets you get all three cruises in as well as the four year no coop. My son is looking at the four year no coop since he has plans for a career Navy and not using a biology degree any time soon. That could change however. He feels he will get more out of the cruises than the bio coop. The issue with a four year one coop is that after summer break/cruise frosh summer you will be in school, coop, cruise and school without a break from beginning soph year until graduation. No down time at all, so my son is looking for a break here and there and a graduation in four years. With the coop your cruises are taken with time off from your coop time.</p>

<p>Thanks Felixbed for your response. It is a rather confusing process to understand how a coop works with Rotc but am glad to hear it doesnt prove to be a problem.We are just beginning the process of applying for a scholarship for my son as he will enroll in college in the Fall of 2010.Lots of info to take in and understand along with choosing colleges he would like to apply for the scholarship. I do believe he will be considering Drexel as one of his top choices though.</p>

<p>Good luck with the whole process. There is a lot of good info on this site and many out there to help with the process.</p>

<p>that is slightly not accurate. a 4 year with 1 co-op gets two cruises, one after freshman year, and one after their junior year during their first co-op cycle. You’ll need to take one month off from your co-op in order to do the cruise, and normally employers are fine with this. I highly recommend the 5 year with 3 co-op though, that’s what most NROTC guys do. You get 3 cruises. I wrote a post specifically about this situation (take a look at the ROTC thread in this drexel board). BTW, cruises are a great time and are the best part about ROTC by far. Bottom line is co-op will just give you an advantage with the military because you will have civilian work experience, what probably no other officer will have. Every single officer that I told the co-op program about loved it and wished they were in a program like that. That’s what makes Drexel/NROTC the most unique program out there. good luck and let me know if you have any other questions</p>