electrical engineering

ganderegg

5-Year Member
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Sep 2, 2013
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If somebody went to college on the ROTC and majored in electrical engineering or one of the other branches of engineering, when they entered active duty could they do engineering for the military immediately? I mean would they be able to enter active duty without going to AD school?
 
Post NROTC

When you have completed college you will get a set of orders... More than likely you will not go to the fleet, unless it's a TAD assignment while you wait for a seat to open for a class. I would bet that post college you will be assigned directly to a Naval training schools. If your going to be a sub sailor there is no way you will go directly to a sub not even as TAD, your going to sub school even if you have to wait there. If they attach you to an air wing that could work like the fleet, TAD until a seat opens. SF, not a clue how that community runs but I think it would be much like subs...training first!

Everything will depend on "what the Navy wants" you to do. Last note: All my information could be wrong, my experiences are based off of 1984 to 1988....things change!

An EE is a wonderful degree to have, very powerful. My son is also going EE, his plan is to later down the raod become a lawer. Patten law, nice nitch. great career! We shall see, it's a long road and things change.

All the best to you!!
 
For Navy subs, I think the Navy training depends upon the job on the sub. All Navy sub captains have to have graduated from NNPTC which includes 6 months of nuclear power school and 6 months of nuclear prototype training...
 
^^^
PM Pima if she doesn't respond directly in a few days. I'm pretty sure EE is a critical resource in Air Force, so you'll do EE stuff... but still only after initial AD schools.

EDIT: Of course by the time you graduate everything could be entirely different.
 
I'm pretty sure EE is a critical resource in Air Force, so you'll do EE stuff... but still only after initial AD schools.
Correct. My son is a junior (C2C) EE major at USAFA and after graduation you WILL attend a "school" before being assigned.....unless of course you are continuing your eductaion at the Masters/PHD level or pursuing some non-engineering AFSC like pilot.
 
As it has been said previously, ALL engineering career fields are in critical demand within the AF. This is why the AF holds most of their ROTC scholarships for technical degrees, and chances are if you are given a technical degree scholarship by the AF, you WILL serve in a technical career field (so be careful accepting that scholarship just as a means to "pay for school" if you don't want to serve in that type of AF career).

What do AF engineers do? Well, many will start off doing the typical "engineering" type things you are thinking about: working on programs or in the acquisition of new systems. You may go to a technical school first before reporting to your first permanent duty station for a 3 year tour. But the AF isn't making you an officer to do that for long, or to do the "leg work" of engineering; we have plenty of civilian engineers and scientists with MANY years of experience to do that, or we contract this work out to some Defense Company. Instead, as an AF engineer, you will be asked to oversee the Defense Company's or civilian's efforts, verify they are fulfilling their contract. I see this A LOT in the F-35 program -- the AF has a TON of young Lts and Capts whose engineering job is to review the work being done by Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and a host of other defense contractors. Folks in the industry, with TONS of years of experience, having to demonstrate their work to young AF officers just like you.

And for you, this is a GOOD thing. You'll be put in that supervisor / program manager role at an age MUCH younger than your civilian counterparts (who more than likely won't ever get that chance until they are in their late 30s). You are making yourself a COMMODITY for when you do finally leave the service (and we all do leave eventually). If you decide to stay for 10 years in the AF? Well, at 32 you will be MUCH more experienced as a MANAGER and a LEADER in the engineering career field, and the benefit of that is you'll be making MUCH more than other engineers your age, with a lot more responsibility and potential to advance further.
 
DS is in mechanical engineering in AROTC. Is that a critical field for the Army like it is for AF? With good OML, LDAC scores, PFT and GPA, are his chances of AD good with Army?
 
For a EE major starting active duty in the Air Force, how long would AD school be?
 
DS is in mechanical engineering in AROTC. Is that a critical field for the Army like it is for AF? With good OML, LDAC scores, PFT and GPA, are his chances of AD good with Army?

It is still possible to get AD as long as you work hard, but right now STEM majors are not as critical for the Army as the other two branches.

They are making attempts to get more STEM majors by providing some incentives such as a small oml boost and preferred branching, but it is nowhere like other services. It is also far less likely that he will use his degree like Bullet described.
 
It is still possible to get AD as long as you work hard, but right now STEM majors are not as critical for the Army as the other two branches.

They are making attempts to get more STEM majors by providing some incentives such as a small oml boost and preferred branching, but it is nowhere like other services. It is also far less likely that he will use his degree like Bullet described.

WOW!! Had no idea. I would have thought that a STEM major would be highly sought after. With a ME degree, will he have to attend BOLC AND EOBC?
 
WOW!! Had no idea. I would have thought that a STEM major would be highly sought after. With a ME degree, will he have to attend BOLC AND EOBC?

BOLC and OBC are the same thing. Different corps attend different BOLCs.
 
And yes, Cajuncarrier, everyone attends BOLC. The odds of actually using an ME degree on a practical level are slim as a junior officer. Assuming he wants to branch EN, your DS needs to attend BOLC to actually learn how to lead Combat Engineers, which is a different animal altogether than "being a mechanical engineer".
 
The Army does want engineers and other STEM majors and they are highly sought after by the Army in an ideal world. The problem is that the current OML/Branching model does not provide much incentive to go the engineering or STEM route.

And like Jcc123 said, even branching engineers will not mean using your degree like a "true" practicing engineer. That being said, it will still look good to employers down the road if that is what he has on his resume.
 
WOW!! Had no idea. I would have thought that a STEM major would be highly sought after. With a ME degree, will he have to attend BOLC AND EOBC?

Although I am not an engineering officer (horizontal, vertical or combat) I can almost guarantee you having an engineering degree isn't all that useful for a EBOLC qualified officer. For the Amy it just sounds good on paper. I am a big proponent of more science degrees since I see a large lack of STEM majors in the Army but it's really not essential. For the real engineering projects we have civilian contractors and the COE.

A PL is PL in any branch, you aren't going to mapping and planning road projects or creating new concrete delivery systems with your degree.
 
The Army does want engineers and other STEM majors and they are highly sought after by the Army in an ideal world. The problem is that the current OML/Branching model does not provide much incentive to go the engineering or STEM route.

In the current branching system the Army hold about 50% of the engineering branch slots for those cadets with certain engineering degrees. There is also a program for cadets with certain STEM degrees to select Active Duty in certain branches even if they do not make the official cutoff for Active Duty, restrictions apply. Certain STEM majors can also give the cadet up to 1 extra point on their OML.

To me that seems like some very good incentive for STEM majors.

I do agree that cadets may find that they really do not use their degree as much as one would think.
 
Although I am not an engineering officer (horizontal, vertical or combat) I can almost guarantee you having an engineering degree isn't all that useful for a EBOLC qualified officer. For the Amy it just sounds good on paper. I am a big proponent of more science degrees since I see a large lack of STEM majors in the Army but it's really not essential. For the real engineering projects we have civilian contractors and the COE.

A PL is PL in any branch, you aren't going to mapping and planning road projects or creating new concrete delivery systems with your degree.

With the exception of special branches (Medical, JAG, and Chaplain), you REALLY don't need a specialty degree to perform an entry level officer job. BOLC and OJT is all you need. I feel the push for STEM degrees is the new version of "badge protecting".

No bias in my statement (one of my masters is a STEM), I just call it like I see it.
 
In the current branching system the Army hold about 50% of the engineering branch slots for those cadets with certain engineering degrees. There is also a program for cadets with certain STEM degrees to select Active Duty in certain branches even if they do not make the official cutoff for Active Duty, restrictions apply. Certain STEM majors can also give the cadet up to 1 extra point on their OML.

To me that seems like some very good incentive for STEM majors.

My peers and I never felt that the one point bump on the OML was enough for the "extra" work we felt we put in over other majors. Then we learned to quit complaining and work so that we would not need to depend on that point, even though it is nice to have.

And I forgot about the preferential branching model the Army is doing now. From what I can tell that was a change between FY13 and FY14 as I don't remember hearing about those slots a year ago when my peers were branching. I also was not commissioning until this year so it is possible I just was not paying that close attention. It appears to be a good program that hopefully will provide the necessary incentive for STEM majors in the future.
 
Thanks for the clarification.

My oldest son who graduated in chemical engineering often said that getting a degree looks great on paper. One professor actually told him that employers just look for a degree. "Because, once you've graduated they know that you have the capacity to learn. Employers like to train the employees themselves, therefore, it didn't matter what kind of degree you have."

I agree with that statement to a point. I still believe that employees should come to the job with a background in the field. However, most employees will be trained for the specific job they are hired for. Sounds like this is what the military wants as well.

DS has four years to figure it all out. I know I won't be able to guide him in listing his branches when the time comes. He will have to totally rely on his commanders for that.
 
My oldest son who graduated in chemical engineering often said that getting a degree looks great on paper. One professor actually told him that employers just look for a degree. "Because, once you've graduated they know that you have the capacity to learn. Employers like to train the employees themselves, therefore, it didn't matter what kind of degree you have."

I agree with that statement to a point. I still believe that employees should come to the job with a background in the field. However, most employees will be trained for the specific job they are hired for. Sounds like this is what the military wants as well.
That may be true for some types of jobs. I have held three jobs since I graduated from college and would not have landed any of those without that piece of paper that said "Engineer" on it. Our techs all have a technical background of some kind but there is a little more leeway there as we can train techs if they have the background to understand technical material. Over in marketing there are quite a few different backgrounds.

A military apparently does not feel a particular educational background is necessary for most officer positions.
 
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