military bound

1. You are considering becoming an officer down the road. Officers are "commissioned" (by the President, in fact). You are accepted into the officer corps by receiving a commissioned, and you leave the service by resigning that commission.

2. Just as you are enlisting in a certain specialty ("AFSC" in the AF, "MOS" in the Army), officers too have specialties.

3. You don't have to be commissioned in a specialty related to your enlisted AFSC (but in some fields it helps, particularly medicine).

4. You're getting a TS/SBI. You like sales. IO and psyops officers require both a sales "mentality" and a TS/SBI. With the right degree you may consider applying for commissioning as an IO or psyops officer, in another service if necessary (from what I can tell the AF doesn't treat IO and psyops as a full-fledged career path in the same way that the Army does: http://www.airforce.com/careers/officer/careers.php ).

I once served under an infantry lieutenant who had performed enlisted duties in signals intelligence - infantry and signals intelligence are two completely different specialties. I knew an intelligence officer who had served as an enlisted Navy submariner - again, two completely different specialties. My friend the former Army infantry captain transferred to the Coast Guard and will eventually pilot a vessel - completely different jobs.

The moral of the story is that you're enlisting for one job, but if you become an officer you can change jobs. But to become an officer you'll have to excel as an enlisted airman, even if the job you're enlisted for doesn't really suit you (it happens all the time).

 

I'm BACK!

I just graduated from Airforce BMT on July 7, 2006. Currently stationed at Goodfellow AFB (San Angelo, TX) awaiting my interim security clearance badge and the start date of the next class.

Look for me to participate more on this forum. I'll also spread the message to others like myself who want to pursue thier degrees.

I'm still leaning towards finishing my current degree plan (biology) just to get it out of the way. My next goals would be to become proficient in writing, reading, and speaking Spanish, Vietnamese and Korean. I also want to be VERY proficient in public speaking. For some reason I believe that I will definitely need to be good at that.

Anyways I look foward to chatting with each one of you while I frequent this message board.

 

Public speaking skills can be very very valuable. You might want to find the local chapter of Toastmasters International (http://www.toastmasters.org/) as a practice source.

You might also want to consider volunteering down at the local Red Cross as an instructor of something that interests you (high demand for disaster instructors) as a chance to get alot of hands-on platform teaching experience.

Protect that TS/SBI like it's gold dude! Old Sarge saying "one 'oh shi7' will erase 1000 'atta boys"

 

Congratulations!

I caught on to this thread late - congrats from an "old" AF MSgt on your BMT graduation! I'll be retiring in a year or so, but I wanted to point out that you've had some GREAT advice from this board.

- Pursue your ambitions. I've served under, with, and mentored some young prior enlisted officers that wound up with specialties that had NOTHING to do with what they did as an enlisted member or their degree plan.

- I currently hold a TS/SBI, I work in a specialized AFSC (Air Force Specialty Code) and trust me, it’s marketable. When you start receiving employment inquiries 14 months out from retirement, you’re onto something.

- Don’t underestimate CCAF; it’s a regionally accredited option that can award credit. Might give you more options, but be sure to check with the base education office.

Wherever your career takes you, best of luck, and “Aim High”!

Dave

 

I am a DLI-trained former Korean linguist who went on to study Korean at one of the top Asian Studies departments in the world (University of Washington).

Korean is an exceptionally difficult language to master for those whose native language is English. It is grammatically, syntactically, and idiomatically quite different from English, Spanish, and Vietnamese (although, Korean and Vietnamese do share some vocabulary rooted in Chinese, the pronunciations of which are vaguely similar. For example: medical doctor - "bak sa" in Korean, "bac si" in Vietnamese).

Generally, native English speakers who have no Korean heritage but who hope to achieve a Korean DLPT score of 2/2/2 will need to focus their energies on this goal to the exclusion of *all* others.

When I worked second shift in the Army I would get off at midnite, return to the barracks, study Korean till 3 AM, wake up at 10 AM, go to class at the post (base) language school, do PT, report for my duty shift, lather rinse repeat. After a year of this I scored a 2+/3.

Then they removed Hanja (Chinese characters) from the Korean DLPT and my reading score never recovered.

 

One could argue that Japanese is nominally more difficult than Korean; however, Korean and Japanese are very similar grammatically and otherwise. Native speakers of either generally acquire the other quite easily. Japanese employs four different writing sytems (katakana, hiragana, kanji, and romaji (the Roman alphabet) while Korean employs only three (hangul, hanja, and the Roman alphabet).

The Department of Defense classifies Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, and Arabic as "Category IV" languages, meaning the most difficult to learn for native speakers of English. Proficiency pay bonuses are higher for this category than they are for Vietnamese (Category III) or Spanish (Category I).

I married a Chinese linguist while I was a student at DLI. We often compared notes. She would help me learn Hanja, the Chinese characters that Koreans still employ in certain context (at that time Koreans employed 2000, now they've reduced the number of characters to about 600). Chinese dialect speakers must master at least 10,000 to be considered literate.

Korean grammar is more complex than Mandarin grammar. She informed me that they'd completed studying Mandarin grammar at about the six month mark; by contrast, Korean grammar rules take more than two years to learn.

So once a student gets past the tones (which are also a characteristic of Vietnamese, a less-difficult Cat III language) the languages are arguably of roughly equivalent difficulty.

 

Be careful with enlisting. Don't lose sight of your final goals.

Several motivated individuals I know enlisted with a few college credits, one guy even had a degree, and a lot of them ended up getting sidetracked after their enlistment, due to starting a family, mentally unwilling to continue education after being deployed several times, and the almightly party bug, etc.

Being on active duty is a totally different beast.

 

Half Empty!

Ok, chalk me up as a pessimist with a bad experience...or listen carefully:

Get the college credit, go in as officer if possible. If you can't just do that, do whatever you have to do to get the bars instead of the stripes. Now, before people slam me for being anti-enlisted...I'm not. I was in the USAF for 6 years, myself. The best decision I ever made was going into the Air Force. The second best decision I ever made was getting out.

If you go in at 27, you'll be surrounded by a bunch of 18yo's and the group will be treated accordingly. You'll be amidst hundreds of "peers" who have never known a life outside of mommy and daddy and will need the structure and discipline which the first few years of the military will certainly give them. Unfortunately, until your first duty station, you'll receive the exact same treatment. I'm not saying you can't do it or even that it isn't worth it. But it's certainly much more difficult on older, more mature people than it is on the 18-19 year olds. I'm not sure of this, but check to be sure you can automatically switch to the Officer Corps when you get your degree. I was under the impression you had to wait a few years before they would take you. The benefit for them is that you are enlisted and signed a 4 year deal. They will spend a lot of money training you how to be a good peon. The brass won't much like the idea of you saying "thanks for all the investment, I'm going to be retrained now to be an officer."

I hate saying negative things about the military as I recommend it to anyone 18-20 years old. Heck, I specifically recommend the Air Force as it's a lot less BS than the other services. As strongly as I feel about it's advantages, I feel even stronger that you should go in as an officer if you're capable.

Ok, I'm done.

 

There is a common misconception that college degree = commission. This simply isn't the case. It may have been that way "back when" but these days a college degree alone isn't sufficient to get a commission or a warrant.

Very many fine enlisted members have a college degree. Master's degrees are not unheard of in some occupational fields and in my old field (the band) there were senior enlisted members who had an earned doctorate.

Some occupational fields attract enlisted college grads at a higher rate than others. Linguists are among those.

If your goal is to be a USAF officer then by all means go for it. It's a noble and worthy calling.

Don't be misled into thinking that all military members with a degree are officers or that all enlisted members are poorly educated. It'll only take being corrected by an MBA holding staff NCO once to remember that many military members elect the life of a career NCO.

Best of luck to you....

 

Outstanding Coach - I chose the enlisted life because I've loved what I've done, and it's damned marketable (IT and telecom project management). As it stands, everyone in my office either has or is working on a Bachelors, and two of my subordinate NCOs love to rub my nose in the fact that they're working on a Masters currently, ergo they'll finish long before I get mine.

This is above the norm as far as average education levels in an all enlisted office, but it speaks to your point. You're absolutely correct; Degree doesn't automatically equal Commision.

However, as to our young friends questions, step 1 is certainly to get the degree.

Step 2 is to take the AFOQT (Air Force Officer Qualifying Test). If your scores are high enough, then you work with your command chain to put together a package and apply to OTS (Officer Training School). If selected, then you'll go to OTS, and upon graduation, be commisioned as a Second Lt.

My advice would be to seek out an officer or officers in your first regular duty unit, and pick their brains. Most are happy to help, and chances are that maybe at least one of them went this route. Best of luck to you and your ambitions.

Dave