Army ROTC

Maya12

Maya12

New Member
Joined
Nov 12, 2018
Messages
8
My daughter joined Army ROTC spring semester of her sophomore year. Her Cadres told her that she would have to play catch-up but that he would get her in. She was really gung ho about the whole thing and loved it. She went off to Fort Knox Kentucky to boot camp for four weeks in the summer and loved that. She is now in her first semester of her junior year and is struggling big time. She feels that she is way behind in all of her ROTC classes and it is also affecting her regular college work. She feels that she is expected to know what everyone else knows but was not taught the information since she started late in the year. She was given a two year scholarship and has commissioned. She feels that she is at the bottom of her ROTC class and would like to know what she can do to get ahead without being told to “suck it up”. She is experiencing high anxiety with all of this and is questioning herself if she made the right decision about commissioning! What advice can you give her?
 
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So she has contracted, not commissioned.
All can she do is apply herself to every task she is given like her future depends on it.
At the end of the process the last place cadet is still called 2LT.
As long as she is above minimums she should be ok.
Active Duty could be an issue if her OML score is below the cutoff.
But the AD cutoff could be fairly low compared to other years for her as the Army expands.
 
Ok....First off, she is contracted, not commissioned. She didn’t go to Boot camp she went to basic camp. Basic Camp is designed to get a Cadet caught up with the first two years of ROTC. Your daughter does need to “suck it up” and calm down. Nothing taught in ROTC class is rocket science, and Cadets learn by doing and making mistakes. She is preparing for Advanced Camp this summer, which is the crux of Army ROTC training, but she will do fine.
Tell her to do the best she can and tell her she needs to focus on her other classes. As long as she is showing up and learning during her ROTC class and lab and she is passing her PT test she is doing what is expected of a Cadet.
 
Maya12 said:
Sorry im new to all of this but about two weeks ago she signed on after she received her two year scholarship she committed for the four years after college!
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No worries! That is what this forum is good for, I didn’t know what any of the terminology meant either when my daughter first started, and I am still learning.

If you daughter still has the desire to serve as an officer in the Army, she will do fine. Junior year is when classes dive a little deeper and the workload increases, we have definitely heard about that change in our household this year! So it is a lot, but the ROTC stuff will figure itself out. Like said above, this entire year is designed to get her prepared for Advanced Camp this summer, so she doesn’t have to know it all now, she is learning. Just keep encouraging her - other people have walked the same path with the same challenges and succeeded, she can too! And congrats to her on her decision to serve and her scholarship, that is very exciting.
 
clarksonarmy said:
Ok....First off, she is contracted, not commissioned. She didn’t go to Boot camp she went to basic camp. Basic Camp is designed to get a Cadet caught up with the first two years of ROTC. Your daughter does need to “suck it up” and calm down. Nothing taught in ROTC class is rocket science, and Cadets learn by doing and making mistakes. She is preparing for Advanced Camp this summer, which is the crux of Army ROTC training, but she will do fine.
Tell her to do the best she can and tell her she needs to focus on her other classes. As long as she is showing up and learning during her ROTC class and lab and she is passing her PT test she is doing what is expected of a Cadet.
Click to expand...
Well, as you can tell all of this new to both of us! I appreciate the feedback. PT is not an issue, my daughter is an athlete and went up against a lot of young men in her platoon. Hopefully I got the terminology correct. I will pass on the advice to her but I doubt if it will make her feel much better. I guess she’ll just have to “suck it up”.
 
Dckc88 said:
Maya12 said:
Sorry im new to all of this but about two weeks ago she signed on after she received her two year scholarship she committed for the four years after college!
Click to expand...
No worries! That is what this forum is good for, I didn’t know what any of the terminology meant either when my daughter first started, and I am still learning.

If you daughter still has the desire to serve as an officer in the Army, she will do fine. Junior year is when classes dive a little deeper and the workload increases, we have definitely heard about that change in our household this year! So it is a lot, but the ROTC stuff will figure itself out. Like said above, this entire year is designed to get her prepared for Advanced Camp this summer, so she doesn’t have to know it all now, she is learning. Just keep encouraging her - other people have walked the same path with the same challenges and succeeded, she can too! And congrats to her on her decision to serve and her scholarship, that is very exciting.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the encouragement from one parent to another...
 
clarksonarmy said:
Ok....First off, she is contracted, not commissioned. She didn’t go to Boot camp she went to basic camp. Basic Camp is designed to get a Cadet caught up with the first two years of ROTC. Your daughter does need to “suck it up” and calm down. Nothing taught in ROTC class is rocket science, and Cadets learn by doing and making mistakes. She is preparing for Advanced Camp this summer, which is the crux of Army ROTC training, but she will do fine.
Tell her to do the best she can and tell her she needs to focus on her other classes. As long as she is showing up and learning during her ROTC class and lab and she is passing her PT test she is doing what is expected of a Cadet.
Click to expand...

Clarkson,

You are without question the most valuable poster on this forum, when it comes to Army ROTC.

Keep up the good work.
 
Tell your DD that this won’t be the only time she has to suck it up. There’ll be plenty of that as she advances through ROTC, and even more when she gets commissioned and leads a platoon and then a company. The military is full of new things to learn, in too little time, under a lot of pressure. As an officer, she won’t know everything and won’t be expected to. But she’ll have to learn how and where to get the information she needs to achieve the mission. That training starts now. Best wishes to her.
 
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