How Will Joining ROTC Affect My Physics Major and Future Career?

[Heroguy82]

Hello everyone!

My name is Tim and I am going to be a junior physics major this upcoming fall of 2018. I started college in fall of 2014 as a physics major at a junior college and joined the army national guard in the spring of 2015. I went to basic that fall and missed an entire year of school for basic training and my advanced individual training for my job field. I joined army aviation as a Chinook mechanic and returned back to school that following fall of 2016 and completed my associates in physics in spring of 2017.

I graduated with good grades and made the dean's list my last semester there. I was accepted to my transfer university early of 2017, however I ended up volunteering with my unit to deploy to Afghanistan this year because they were in need of people. Thus I was forced to delay my admission until fall of 2018 to the university.

Now, my major question with all this. I will be returning to the states in summer this year, and I have been majorly considering joining ROTC when I return to the university. This way when I complete my undergrad degree, and I can commission and then go to flight school to be a Chinook pilot.

My long term goals with physics is to go to graduate school and earn a Ph.D. in physics. I was wondering on how everybody thinks ROTC will effect my work load and my progress towards my degree especially with having to leave for a year after I obtain my bachelor's degree for flight school. Also, this would mean I would be staying in the army for a lot longer than just my initial contract.

I was also curious that if I did do this, what would be the benefits in the physics world with having the management and leadership experience of a commissioned officer, as well as the helicopter experience. As far as being an enlisted soldier, I have studied hard and earned my way to flight crew spot and am working my way up being a crew chief. The job is technical with troubleshooting problems on the helicopter as well as maintaining it. I feel being a pilot will only increase these technical skills and will be a nice boost on my resume.

I appreciate any advice anybody can offer me! I am going to have to decide on this before returning home.

Thank you!
-Tim

 

[opus]

You say you want to go to graduate school and physics is your ultimate goal. So why commission as an officer? A pilot would be a sweet gig, but youre looking at minimum 4 years of doing absolutely squat with your degree. It would be hard for me to come back after that.

 

[Heroguy82]

You say you want to go to graduate school and physics is your ultimate goal. So why commission as an officer? A pilot would be a sweet gig, but youre looking at minimum 4 years of doing absolutely squat with your degree. It would be hard for me to come back after that.

Being in the national guard I could continue my education directly after flight school. I would only be doing one weekend a month and 2 weeks in the summer.

 

[analogdesign]

I know one individual who was in ROTC (Navy) as a physics major. He ended up working on a nuclear sub for several years and then went to graduate school in physics (UC Berkeley). Now he is a quant with a hedge fund and I've mostly lost touch with the guy. He is truly brilliant and he really enjoyed his military experience (this was in the 1990s).

In other words, no problem at all doing ROTC with a physics major if your goal is a physics Ph.D. I think the main benefit you would get would be self-discipline and maturity so you can better reach your potential both as you finish up undergrad and in graduate school. The leadership benefits of your military experience would mostly start kicking in once you're in your career, I think.

 

[Vanadium 50]

First, yes you can do this.

I would double-, triple- and quadruple-check that you can go straight to a NG drilling billet with no active duty obligation. Not just that this is a theoretical possibility, but that this actually happens. Your whole plan depends on not taking ~6 years off. And what about deployments? And, of course, you probably know that WO's do most of the flying.

 

[Heroguy82]

Thanks for the advice! As far as the active duty obligation. I have already talked to my company commander and I could contract right back into my unit as soon as I would contract with ROTC. I've thought about the benefits of being a Warrant officer too with flying more. I just know that doing ROTC would be more money and benefits during school. I might have to break up my undergrad even more if I do Warrant program having to leave for another year. ROTC at least guarantees me to have a degree when I'm done.

 

[opus]

Keep in mind that word of mouth means absolutely squat. As Vanadium said, be sure that you won't be in a position to deploy. I am not familiar with the NG, but with any form of miltary things, you must have everything in writing. The military is a sweet gig and very rewarding. They will take care of you and help you with your ambitions. But you are their property and if there is nothing in writing to prevent you from deploying, they will deploy you.