How well will an engineering degree from the academy prepare me for an engineering job?

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markaero

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Hello, I know it is too late to ask since plebe summer is just around the corner, but I am having second thoughts about my appointment. I want to major in aerospace engineering. I saw usna requires 145 credits while a civilian school requires 131, but most required courses are on the subject, i.e., a civilian school requires more aerospace credits than the academy does. I am having doubts if the academy will prepare me for a job in aerospace (aeronautical) engineering since it requires less aerospace course load than a civilian school and perhaps the navy will assign me a job that is not related to aeronautical engineering. I want to work as an engineering after my 5 years of service.
I selected the academy for the prestige and the ranking it has over the other school I was accepted to, but I am having second thoughts. Besides that, I also don't know if the navy life is for me. I saw plebe summer videos and read about it. It is designed to make you feel stress and failure. I felt failure before and I am not sure if I could handle it again, especialy for a degree that will not serve me for an engineering job. I wrote back to the civilian school asking back my spot. They put me on wait list. I do not know whether to decline my appointment now, perhaps my civilian school does not take me back. What will I tell my parents? What will I tell my congressman? I do not know what to do. I don't want to end up with nothing.
 
My son graduated with a degree in aerospace engineering. Loved the program. One of his best friends graduated from RPI with same degree.

They conversed throughout. They both agree their educations in aero were similar. The difference is USNA has better labs - like wind tunnels etc.

They both have outstanding prospects for employment in that field. My son may choose a different direction based on his military career. He will pick up a master’s from a good university for free along the way in some engineering discipline … a PhD in aero is also possible.

So many possible paths - it is exciting for him.
 
The degree from the Academy and the follow-on years of experience as a leader and professional will get you a lot further than just a degree from a civilian university. You come out of the military with something employers look for in a job candidate that the civilian school can never offer.

Trust me, as a middle manager for a certain Government space Agency who often has to hire people, I'd rather have a service academy grad with real world leadership experience than someone who graduated from MIT or Cal Tech on my teams ..... you learn your job while on the job. And generally, people just coming into the aerospace industry aren't being given impossible tasks that require extensive engineering experience to perform. Those come with time and activities in the field.
 
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You will not be assigned an engineering job right out of the Academy. You should check out the USNA website to see the career opportunities.

A degree from USNA will be from the top public school in the country. It will stand up against any other school. Many employers will hire SA grads over other universities because they know that they are trustworthy and disciplined.

However, if you think the whole military aspect is not for you, you may be miserable at USNA. The Academy is about making future leaders for the Navy. Do you want to serve your country first and be an engineer second? Only you can answer that question but it's better to be true to yourself than to try to impress others.

There are quite a few people waiting for a spot at USNA and they have no doubts. Your Congressman would understand. You wouldn't be the first appointee to change his/her mind. Your parents will eventually understand that you have to choose your own path.
 
DS is an aero major. LOVES it. He and his classmates have unfettered access to some of the best labs in the country. The wind tunnel, the rotary lab, and the flight simulators. Astonishing labs are open to them at any time. I think he has spent more time in them by choice than he has in his bed, to be honest.

Internships are something that midshipmen can apply for, they are very competitive. DS is currently in another state participating in a 30-day internship that is based on his major. He said day 1, he and the other SA students who were there were fluent with the terms and tasks assigned to them. They were given assignments and expected to jump in and be ready to contribute. He felt really good about the fact that all of his aero work had prepared him and his classmate to do the work expected of them. They have observed that some of the other students who are there, from civilian schools are not all prepared for the work (I'm sure this isn't true of all of them, but they have noted it of many).

The other big differentiator between most civilian schools and USNA is the access to the instructors and the small class sizes. DS has multiple mentors that are his instructors and gets one on one time with them when needed.

For the OP, Plebe Summer will show you that sometimes you can't do everything right the first time. That isn't necessarily 'failure', it's an opportunity to learn and grow and rely on your shipmates.

You can put your whole heart into the opportunity you have, and the hard work you did to earn it. Doubts aren't rare, they are part of the process of stepping into the next phase of your life, regardless of what that step may be.

Plebe summer won't be easy, but you'll blink and the academic year will start, it won't be easy either, but you will blink and Herndon will happen, and you will be a youngster, with more freedom and fun part of taking classes in your major. Also, recent changes have even given more freedom to the Plebes than they have had in the past. Things to look forward to.

If for some reason, not yet known to you, you find that it isn't what you want for yourself, you can choose to not sign the 2 for 7 before your junior year and take your education with you to the next step in your journey.
 
markaero said:
Hello, I know it is too late to ask since plebe summer is just around the corner, but I am having second thoughts about my appointment. I want to major in aerospace engineering. I saw usna requires 145 credits while a civilian school requires 131, but most required courses are on the subject, i.e., a civilian school requires more aerospace credits than the academy does. I am having doubts if the academy will prepare me for a job in aerospace (aeronautical) engineering since it requires less aerospace course load than a civilian school and perhaps the navy will assign me a job that is not related to aeronautical engineering. I want to work as an engineering after my 5 years of service.
I selected the academy for the prestige and the ranking it has over the other school I was accepted to, but I am having second thoughts. Besides that, I also don't know if the navy life is for me. I saw plebe summer videos and read about it. It is designed to make you feel stress and failure. I felt failure before and I am not sure if I could handle it again, especialy for a degree that will not serve me for an engineering job. I wrote back to the civilian school asking back my spot. They put me on wait list. I do not know whether to decline my appointment now, perhaps my civilian school does not take me back. What will I tell my parents? What will I tell my congressman? I do not know what to do. I don't want to end up with nothing.
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It’s not uncommon to have doubts. Or 2nd thoughts. In fact, I would say it’s actually quite common.

It’s also not uncommon to change course throughout your 4 yrs of college: you may come in with a 100 pct aero major in mind, but once exposed to the other interesting/unique majors offered (oceanography, marine architecture come to mind), you may change your mind.

What jumps out to me as most problematic in your statement are these comments:

I selected the academy for the prestige and the ranking it has over the other school I was accepted to, but I am having second thoughts. Besides that, I also don't know if the navy life is for me.
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It is designed to make you feel stress and failure. I felt failure before and I am not sure if I could handle it again
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Selecting a SA for prestige and ranking, especially unsure if you can handle stress and failure again, is the bigger issue imo.

If your heart isn’t in it, and you applied for the prestige of the institution, I’m not sure it’s a good fit. Not trying to be a downer, but it’s a stressful and difficult journey for someone who has wanted this since childhood…dreamed of becoming a Naval Officer. Plebe summer is not the experience that will change the mind of someone who isn’t pure in their intentions. Many a letters from my own mentioned that he had to find his strength to continue via his ‘why’ (‘mom, when I get down, all I have to do is look up at this amazing place and remember why I applied, and all the other people who tried so hard to get here, and didn’t make it. And I did’ was a common theme in his letters home).

Only you can decide. But do NOT let the thought of letting parents/congressman down be the reason you attend. They will be disappointed. Yes. But they will also get over it. 100 pct. And it’s better to let them know now, than after journeying to USNA for Iday. And dropping out plebe summer.

As others have stated, the actual degree is less valuable than the service afterwards, to future employers. But, you also must reconcile your heart. Your reasoning for applying.

No need to answer, but I would encourage you to re-read your essay. And think about your BGO interview. Were you honest? Have your had a change of heart from what you wrote/said? What does all of that look like? Maybe you just need to think about your ‘why’. Idk. But if it comes down to ‘I only wanted this for the prestige’, I would tell my own to withdraw.

Good luck, and let us know what you choose!
 
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If your priority is being an aerospace engineer, and you don’t feel Navy life is for you, then perhaps consider turning down the appointment. And if you do so you shouldn’t feel shame, you should be proud of your maturity.

What will I tell my parents? What will I tell my congressman?
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This should be the last of your concerns, but it’s pretty easy—The truth. You decided it’s not the right path for you. Perhaps you want to serve your country as a civilian. All those killer aircraft the military has? Somebody has to design and build them, and it’s not the Pilots and NFOs. As an aerospace engineer for Boeing or Lockheed you’d be contributing to your nation’s defense, just in a different capacity. Just food for thought! But you won’t be an aerospace engineer coming out of USNA. (Even if you are colorblind.)

If you do go to USNA, trust that you’ll receive a top-notch engineering education. The downside is that academics aren’t the priority at USNA. You might collectively spend more time parading, watching football games, reading proknow, and attending lectures than studying for your major. USNA is focused on preparing you to be a naval officer. It’s great that you have plans for a career after the Navy, we all do. But you have to be willing to place those plans on the backburner for the foreseeable future—minimum 9 years (4 USNA + 5 service obligation) or more like 15 years if you want to be a pilot.

If your civilian option has a solid aerospace engineering program, and you perform well and network, I can’t imagine you’d have any difficulty getting a job. You could even decide to join the Navy through OCS if you have a change of heart halfway through college. College debt? Yeah it sucks, but if you land an aerospace engineering job….you’ll live, trust me. College debt is more of a concern for people that get degrees that aren’t marketable to get them a high paying job (i.e. most college grads). The free tuition of USNA is a bonus more than anything. Nobody should go for that reason. You go for the unique experience (camaraderie, challenge, tradition, discipline).

As far as “leadership development” goes, I think that’s mostly innate. In my opinion, someone lacking in integrity and people skills probably won’t enter the Academy and graduate a changed man or woman. They either separate or slip through the cracks and commission. Just look at Fat Leonard or Tailhook, lots of USNA grads implicated. Then you have great honorable leaders like John McCain and Ross Perot. My guess is they’d both still have been great leaders if they went elsewhere for college. To the extent that a USNA degree and military officer experience is a proxy for leadership and integrity (I’d agree it is), I think it’s a case of selection bias, a result of admissions and the 4-year program being so demanding that they filter out (most) people who aren’t good leaders. Just my take, I’ll stop rambling. My point is that you can still be a great leader in your field if you don’t go to USNA, provided you have “the right stuff”.

I say follow your heart. Both paths allow for a successful career. Think about what your priorities are and what you want out of your college experience. If it’s just nerves, then that’s normal and I’d report to I-Day. But if you’ve come to a realization that devoting the next 1-2 decades of your life to the military is not what you want, then by all means don’t force feed it to yourself. That’s not doing anyone any favors.

Also, as you deliberate, I suggest talking things over with someone whom you trust. Whether it’s a parent, coach, aunt/uncle, sibling, priest, rabbi, imam, boyscout leader, I don’t care who but I think talking things through helps. Even if they can’t give you much direct advice, talking about it will help you make sense of it all. Good luck!
 
markaero said:
Hello, I know it is too late to ask since plebe summer is just around the corner, but I am having second thoughts about my appointment. I want to major in aerospace engineering. I saw usna requires 145 credits while a civilian school requires 131, but most required courses are on the subject, i.e., a civilian school requires more aerospace credits than the academy does. I am having doubts if the academy will prepare me for a job in aerospace (aeronautical) engineering since it requires less aerospace course load than a civilian school and perhaps the navy will assign me a job that is not related to aeronautical engineering. I want to work as an engineering after my 5 years of service.
I selected the academy for the prestige and the ranking it has over the other school I was accepted to, but I am having second thoughts. Besides that, I also don't know if the navy life is for me. I saw plebe summer videos and read about it. It is designed to make you feel stress and failure. I felt failure before and I am not sure if I could handle it again, especialy for a degree that will not serve me for an engineering job. I wrote back to the civilian school asking back my spot. They put me on wait list. I do not know whether to decline myself but I've been appointment now, perhaps my civilian school does not take me back. What will I tell my parents? What will I tell my congressman? I do not know what to do. I don't want to end up without you have nothing.
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Doubts about USNA and Navy life. Are you willing to jump on a live grenade to save your shipmates? It's a rhetorical question. This concept is hard to fathom but will lay the foundation during plebe summer.
... So my DS ('26) had an illusion of grandeur of finishing first in the run during the first PRT. This went down the tube quickly. The first week became clear to him that in order to survive, he had to work together with other mids. He bonded quickly with his roommates and squad. During each run, he stayed back to motivate and pull his roommates and squad to finish the run. Maybe it's karma, but good deeds come full circle. The same roommates called 911 when my DS needed medical assistance.
 
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@markaero <—> Arrow mark

It’s a reflection …

Definition: “Due to its nature as pointing in a specific direction, many people view an arrow as a symbol of direction, ambition, and commitment to a goal and moving forward. This can be related to motivation, perseverance, and intention.”

@markaero is pointed in the opposing direction …
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I just graduated with an engineering degree from USNA. USNA is a very prestigious institution, and its engineering department in particular is very highly ranked (just check US News). You are correct that you will have to take extra credits in non-engineering classes at USNA such as leadership and navigation, but that should not come as any surprise - the purpose of getting a degree (for most people) is to prepare themselves for a job. In this case, you are going to a school that is preparing and paying you to become an officer in the US Navy or the US Marine Corps.

In my opinion, my engineering education was second-to-none. I never took a class with more than 23 people in it and all of my professors were extremely invested in teaching us first and foremost. This is something that you won't see at most other universities where research is the primary focus for a lot of professors (that is where the $ come from for their departments). I was never taught by a graduate student either - there are no graduate students at the Naval Academy - the focus is on the midshipman. Besides the other academies, you will be hard pressed to find another institution that has such a focus on undergrads and one that will push you harder to succeed academically (they are paying for your school, food, clothes, housing, etc. this is a significant investment they don't want to go to waste).

Compared with a civilian institution, you may take one or two fewer elective classes due to the fact that you need to graduate in four years. I showed up to the academy a bit ahead (I tested out of calculus, physics, and chem), so I just took some extra classes this year in topics I found interesting. I hate to say it, but I feel like the one to two super niche major elective classes probably won't matter much in the long run. Something you may realize as you start school is that, while your academic classes are very important and demonstrate commitment to learning, the real world of engineering is much different than anything you'd ever learn at any university. Most firms want a degree and maybe an EIT license (which USNA prepared us all to get) to get you in the door, but you will learn most of your work on the job regardless of where you studied.

I guess what my point of all of this is that focusing on the prestige and rigor of USNA's engineering program vs. another ABET accredited program is not what I'd focus on (they're all accredited for a reason - they all prepare you to be an engineer). I would look long and hard at whether I wanted to be an officer in the US Navy or Marine Corps. It's okay to hesitate and not be 100% sure when you show up. I sure was not, and I still sometimes think "what if", but at the end of the day, I am so grateful for my decision to stay and stick it out. You will have the kids that wanted to go to USNA since they were four and you'll have the kids who learned about it their junior year of high school (like I did) and had an "oh crap" moment for half of plebe year. I failed a lot and you will too. I handled my failures very poorly at first but learned and became so much more effective at bouncing back, trying again, trying again - eventually you start embracing failure as an opportunity to learn and that is priceless.

The last thing I'll say is that, during your five years of mandatory service, you will unlikely be utilizing your aerospace engineering degree to the extent you may desire. You will most likely be an unrestricted line officer in the Navy or an officer in the Marine Corps. That doesn't mean you won't utilize it at all. Look into the Navy Nuke Program or think about flying or going NFO. After your service obligation, you can do whatever you want, and given the US Government's and Contractor's affinity for hiring Veterans, I think you'd be more than competitive for some pretty sick jobs that may not have been available to you otherwise. This is all a moot point if you don't have your heart invested in being a military officer first and foremost - nine years (four at the academy, five in the fleet) is a long haul. You will be in charge of someone's son/daughter/father/mother eventually. You are very capable of doing this all, but you need to have your heart in it.
 
DS called tonight. Said he had a long conversation with a high level person at his internship. The person told him they seek SA grads because they typically have real world practical experience.

Many engineers at the company spend their career designing and crafting their specialty component, and have no knowledge practically speaking how it fits with the other systems. Many have never seen what they worked on in a real world live airframe.

Food for thought.
 
Sorry to drop more thoughts on this, but summer trainings also provide a whole other level of experiences and opportunities that SAs provide that most civilian schools don’t.

I’m not trying to sell the SA. You either can envision yourself as an officer leading others in a life of service, or you can’t. But that might take a bit of time to reconcile or realize.
 
My classmates that have advanced degrees in engineering/math and also taught at USAFA will tell you the depth of the engineering studies at a service academy are not what you would find at elite 'engineering' schools. A professor at MIT might assign a project requiring a 100 hours of lab work, service academy professors know cadets/mids have many other mandatory time demands and would not assign a similar project. They might assign one that takes 40-50 hours instead.

If your goal is to do hard core engineering, other schools (not many) can get you there faster. Though their professors are less interested in your personal success. Service Academy graduates (even non engineering majors are a hot commodity in industry (as are virtually all Junior military officers).

You should talk to engineering grads to find out what they do fresh out of college. A great friend of mine went to Purdue and landed a great job with GE (when GE was the hot company). His position mandated he change jobs every 6 months to get a solid foundation in engineering and GE processes - he spent 6 months working on improving ice makers. My first job involved how to mate a spy satellite designed to lay down in the Shuttle vs stand up on top of a Titan launch vehicle.

I would suggest without a Masters - its very difficult to gain more experience and be involved in incredibly cool projects than the experiences a junior military officer will bring to the interview table in 5 years of post graduate experience.
 
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With a few more Fed Funds Rate hikes … and J. Powell playing tough and holding rates higher for longer … and with a recession coming … I’m betting that the market for young graduates with little to no experience is gonna get rough for the next 5+ years

Naval Academy grads will benefit even more from the slow down …

@markaero … where are you? Can you give your spot to a waitlister who wants this … or have you had a change of heart and understand that with a little or a lot of pain … there can be no gain.

We want to know what your decision is … no baiting …
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A1Janitor said:
Are you sure that if he backs out, someone will come off a waitlist?
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I believe they hold a small queue on the waitlist up until COB on the Day before I-Day …

@justdoit19 … your youngest came off the waitlist a few days before Plebe summer started … correct?
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Dr. Strange Love said:
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I believe they hold a small queue on the waitlist up until COB on the Day before I-Day …

@justdoit19 … your youngest came off the waitlist a few days before Plebe summer started … correct?
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Anecdotal evidence …

We don’t know where the person was charged to for instance. If it is to a specific slate, and nobody on that slate is on waitlist …

They have also offered an appointment to twe people in past too I believe I have read.

And I have also read where they know there will be some people that back out and have already calculated that in their appointments.
 
Every incoming Plebe has had second thoughts about actually showing up on I-Day. Most have a LOT of second thoughts after they take the oath and find themselves slogging through Plebe Summer, as well.

Some even drop out on I-Day. I saw it happen in 2018 with two of the incoming class of 2022.
Selecting the academy "for the prestige and the ranking it has over the other school" is the wrong reason in my opinion, but nevertheless is just my opinion.

With all that said, you would have never received an offer of appointment if they didn't already feel that you have everything you need to be a success at USNA. The other school just made sure that you have enough money or loans/scholarships to pay for tuition, room, and board.

One is a college in the business of making money, while the other is an institution with the responsibility of creating new officers. Those officers will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Think about the difference and make your decision.
 
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