Air Force ROTC - college?
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It's scarry, but great development, just listen to your senior NCOs after you comission. Hell, focus on comissioning first.
Also, the Air Force has excellent programs for getting your maters right after you comission & health care admin is a particular area of interest to them. Check into some programs as you go & be ready to talk to your commander after you get back from camp. Likely you can go straight thru college & then your masters (all on their dime) w/o more than a few weeks of active duty, and THEN serve a 6 year contract.
I have never been in the air force but my little brother goes to there academy this summer. I am in the Army and I think that ROTC is the best way to go. It prepares you for the military while letting you enjoy college. I would join the reserves at the same time so you can get more training and money during school but you have to balance that now that we are at war because for the first 2 years (before you contract with ROTC) you can be deployed if you do that.
I enlisted in to the National Guard at 17 and went to college and took ROTC and on communing I was a 21 year old 2LT with 5 years in service.
You don't feel very prepared at the time but your only real job as a 2LT is to be a sponge that absorbs information.
I got a masters while in the army (night school) and I have been accepted to a program to get paid full time to go to a university full time to get a 2nd masters on the army's dime (I will owe 6 more years after that but I think it's worth it)
I go to a military school where a large chunk of graduating seniors commission into one of the branches of service. I myself am a non-commissioning member of the AFROTC unit on campus.
Everyone I know has never really had a problem with commissioning after graduation. It's a guarranteed job right after school, they pay for your tuition and books and uniforms while there, and you can get involved in some really cool training at the same time. After your first year, you'd be eligible for the Rising Sophomore programs over the summer, then between sophomore and junior year you attend field training for four weeks. Your ROTC staff will help you during class and leadership lab to get you prepared for entering into the Air Force, and you'll have NCOs and other officers that are always willing to help you get yourself on your feet and accustomed to being in charge of a group of other people.
I think ROTC is a fantastic program. You get an education and prepare for the real world at the same time, and you don't run the risk of getting deployed in the middle of college like you do if you enlist.
ROTC is a waste of time...from prior air force experience, the enlisted corp/officer corp makes a joke of "ROT-SEE" guys.
I made this decision after long discussions with former military guys I knew. They all told me the best way to go in becoming an officer is OCS. They all said ROTC is a waste of time. If you're looking for the scholarship, then go for it. I chose not to do ROTC because I wanted a normal college life.
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