Achievement Unlocked: Would You Like Fries With That?Follow

Only put your GPA there if it's sub-par, no-one likes a boaster.

I'm mostly just waiting to confirm I graduated *** laude, because there was a systems snafu with one of my grades (and I'm too lazy to calculate my GPA myself).

That's my understanding. They only have so much money to spend on shuttling people around and putting them up in thatch huts so, with more applicants than resources, they can afford to be picky.

Even more so now, I'd expect, where you have a bunch of recent graduates thinking they're going to join the Peace Corps and sit out the next couple years of bad economy digging wells in some South Pacific paradise. You do up your odds if you express a willingness to set aside Micronesia and instead go to Liberia or Burkina Faso but then, of course, you wind up spending a few years in Liberia or Burkina Faso.

I still don't get how "over qualified" is a thing. It shouldn't be a thing.

Someone who has the qualifications to do a higher grade of job or get more money is more likely to become unsatisfied with a job that they could eventually perceive as below them. It's easier to hire someone who has the skills for the job, but won't feel that they're better then it. Some jobs where a union is more prevalent have pay scales that are much more tightly tied to qualifications, meaning that you have to pay someone who has more skills more money. In this case it's more obvious how someone can be overqualified.

I was basing my resume advice off of what I've read on tips for resume building. Several different source said that it's worthwhile putting down your college GPA if you did well, because it shows that you are motivated and a hard worker.

All joking aside it's not a horrible career choice, or even temporary while you pad your resume. You can get a bunch of schools that translate really well to real world jobs, more schools if you've got a definite career path you want to take, even by itself most people look fondly to veterans when hiring. You can pretty easily get into a field where, at worst, you'll be in the middle of a base and won't see anything dangerous, and as an officer in one of those fields there's really very little risk. Really, the most dangerous part of any deployment is the tedious stretches of time where nothing happens, and I say that from a combat ready view point. Do finance or administration of some sort and it's almost a working vacation. You'll be expected to have a certain level of fitness, which can be annoying at times but after a while it becomes second nature, and how to shoot a rifle. I can see that as being difficult for some people, as the idea of taking a life is never an easy thing to think about, but again if you do some kind of administrative work the chances of you actually firing at anyone is basically zero. Then again, you might enjoy firing a rifle. I never fired any kind of gun before I joined, and now I have a closet full of 'em. Hell, my company's medic gets higher scores at the ranges than most of the other soldiers here. Then there's health insurance, which is pretty much second to none.

I'm not saying that you should do it, but like Sogoro said: Don't just dismiss it without considering the benefits. It's definitely better than McDonalds, no matter how you look at it. You can do four years while building/padding your resume and have it pretty much entirely paid for you.

Blah, blah, blah... what GI Joe here isn't telling you that the showers are FULL of dudes looking at your junk ALL THE TIME.

The world was a much safer place when you could neither ask if someone was looking at your junk, nor tell someone that you were looking at their junk.

Even my own father, military veteran he was, always told me to go into the Air Force officer's corps if something happened to him. If you're not fit... don't worry, they'll make you healthy in about two months. And the Air Force really wants the intelligent folks moreso than it does the brute strength guys or the gutsy brave ones.

One of my coworkers just set off for AF officer's training school. He was ridiculously excited about it. What was his undergraduate degree in? Religion. I think actually he has an eye toward becoming a chaplain.

The thing about Air Force is that getting in is the hardest part. Army, Navy, and to a degree Marines, aren't nearly as strict and will work with you to get you in shape to pass into the real world. Air Force you've got to be at a certain level before they'll even let you through the door to get better to get out. Of course, once you're in it's about the cushiest job in the armed forces there is.

Taking lives isn't that big an issue, truth be told, and you can easily find positions where you probably won't ever see an enemy combatant. During a deployment, think of the base as a small village. Relatively speaking, very few people are there to do the major protecting, and even if those people are somehow disabled there are layers you have to get through before you get to the core of any installation. There are a lot of jobs where you'll be in the core area. Medics, commo, finance, cooks, mail, if you can think of a civilian job you can almost certainly find the military equivalent. So even if killing is an issue (and it is for most everyone), there's still things you can get into to reap the benefits.

And delegation, that's hardly something you'll have to worry about the first few years you're in, if at all. You pretty much won't be in a position to really delegate anything to anyone, and anything you might have to will be to people that are far more experienced than you and you can usually trust them to get whatever needs to be done, done. And trust me, after those first few years you'll be more than prepared to tell people what to do.

Mud? I can think of maybe two situations where I had to really deal with it. One, when it rains and you have to do weapons qualifications, which is kind of annoying not so much getting dirty as having to clean weapons afterwards, and then there was the Night Fire Course (lovingly called Nick at Night) in boot camp where you get to crawl through the dirt and mud while the Drill Instructors fire live ammo over your head, which is a lot more fun than it sounds. So, once, maybe twice a year if you're unlucky. Maybe never at all.

Sorry, olde warhorse mentality here. Somewhat. Everyone goes through the same Basic program, which is a a four nine week program that everyone goes through. This is, as the name implies, a basic program that teaches you what it means and what it takes to be a soldier, and mostly basic rifle marksmanship. Afterwards, officers go to OCS (Officer Candidate School) for leadership training, whereas regular soldiers go through AIT (Advanced Individual Training), which are schools where you learn the finer points of whatever job you've chosen in the military. There's also BOLC (Basic Officer Leadership Course) that officers have to go to within up to like two years after they get out of BCT (Basic Combat Training; "Basic Training" everyone goes through) and OCS and get their commission.

I think that's the schedule. I'm doing this on my cell phone on the way home so I don't have all the paperwork at my fingertips and just doing this from memory.

Edited, May 15th 2012 4:13pm by lolgaxe

Don't go to law school, that's my advice.