To all science and engineering college students

[woody1189]

I know it sucks paying for college so I just wanted to tell you all about the SMART scholarship offered by the D.O.D. in case you haven't heard of it. Basically, the government will pay your ENTIRE tuition and pay you graciously ($25,000 a year for undergrads and up to $41,000 for PhD and Masters students), in exchange for working after graduation. Each year you get tuition paid for and the stipend, you owe them a full year of work. Also, after your first year you get to intern for your sponsoring facility during the summer and pocket around $1200 a week. The starting salaries aren't too bad either. I think most places start you out around the low 40's but after 2 years have you up to at least 60k. Honestly I think its an awesome program so look into it if you're a student. Also, right after getting one they fly you out to Monterey, California for a week-long orientation which is pretty sweet. Good luck if you apply and thanks for reading! Heres a link:

http://www.asee.org/fellowships/smart/

[macegr]

You get to choose five military laboratories you'd prefer, but ultimately you work where they say you work. You'll be working there during your summer banned, and there is no way to get out of the work commitment after college...other than immediately paying back all funds. You have to ask permission if you want to change your major.

Seems fine if you're the kind of person that like to be told what to do, but would have been too close to indentured servitude for me.

[woody1189]

You make the internships sound like a bad thing... I don't know of many other internships paying 1200 a week for engineering (14 grand total over the summer) majors and 25 grand undergrad stipends are just unheard of. Not to mention you get the experience and security clearance that industry jobs love to see on an application if you really don't like working for the military. Sure it sucks if you get picked for a base you didn't want but c'est la vie. I'm not saying its the best program ever but I am saying you have to look at the negative parts along side the positive. Sure I'll be stuck working for 2 years but that's a lifetime of "indentured servitude" I would be doing to pay off 100,000 extra in student loans. Plus there's immense job security in a time where experienced engineers could be laid off.

-Just my two cents...

[Sorceress Sarah]

The DOD program is a good deal. It is a wonderful thing to emerge from university with degree in hand and without a mountain of debt.

However, the ultimate goal of the DOD program is to entice you to become a commissioned officer in one of the branches of the military. Now if you're not comfortable with a military career, this might not be the angle for you. . .

(Just seeing both sides of the trade. . .)

[mwr]

I was about to post how $100k in student loans for a B.S. in engineering must mean you're going to either a private school or out of state, but dang, even the economical in-state public place I went to (and still work at) estimates $18k per year for fees, dorm, meal plan, etc. And that's not including engineering-specific fees that fund lab upgrades and such. I remember fees being on the order of $1k per semester, and room/board being not much more than that.

Of course, the total budget has been about the same for several years, it's just that the state support has dropped, and the students bear more of the costs directly.

[macegr]

The DOD program is a good deal. It is a wonderful thing to emerge from university with degree in hand and without a mountain of debt.

But that's not what really happens...you emerge from university with a huge debt. Potentially four or six years of your life after school, being controlled by a government program. Again, for some people that might be okay. As an 18 year old, you'll be making the decision to hand control of the next 8 to 12 years of your life to someone else.

Maybe you'll never want to change majors, you'll never want to take that summer backpacking trip to Africa, or you'll never come up with a great idea and build your own company while the idea is fresh and you have the energy to work 20 hour days.

And based on the reading of their policies, you risk suddenly being in enormous debt if you make one mistake.

The lure of the money is huge...that's what it's supposed to do. But for creative and independent people, what price can you put on the peak years of your life?

Just something to think about. I find it hard to believe an 18 year old would truly be able to understand the consequences of their decision when signing up for something like this.

[Sorceress Sarah]

You pretty much have to try to screw up to get tossed out of the military. The best part about becoming a commissioned officer is that you will (barring your screw-up) get 8 years of real-world experience working in your field of expertise, often under the most demanding of situations.. You will also walk into any job interview with the prestige of at least

Leiutenant (insert your name here) if Navy or Coast Guard, or
Captain (insert your name here) if Marines, Air Force or Army.

If you truly excel, then you might just walk in the door as Leiutenant Commander/Major.

That is often enough to get you the job with the rest of the resume` left unread.

Enlisted ranks don't fare quite as well, until you get to E-5 (Petty Officer 2nd Class/Staff Sergeant/Technical Sergeant)

Warrant Officers also do very well, as do Limited Duty Officers.

The career value of a Commission in the military cannot be overstated. It definitely opens doors.

[westfw]

A lot of military service options are "good deals" if your personality is compatible, and you don't come out dead, maimed, or otherwise damaged. I didn't look at this carefully, since I'm well beyond that age, but I'm not sure that "DoD Lab" equals "military service" in the traditional sense, so it might be an ever better deal. It'll depend on whether those 6-8 years of indentured servitude are "good" or "horrible." Which is hard to tell, ahead of time. I know a bunch of people who had no particular issues with their service. I also know some people who went into sponsored programs expecting to be language translators, and ended up being plumbers...

[adafruit]

i dont know what school's y'all went to but at banned, even if you -didnt- sign up for ROTC there was a damn good chance that if you like aero/astro/ee/systems/robotics/meche you'd end up doing military contracting -anyways- because thats where many small companies got $ to kickstart their technology!

[macegr]

Well yeah, but at least you get to choose where you work, or even start making custom ceramic art

[westfw]

On the third hand, in the current economy, it might be nice to know that someone will employ you somewhere, even if it is in the middle of a desert...

[woody1189]

1. I think some of you might be confused about some things here....the program gives you a job as a CONTRACTOR, not in any way affiliated with the armed forces, you have no rank whatsoever. You remain a citizen the entire time. The only mobility you're responsible for is relocating to the base that sponsors you so you can't possibly be forced overseas or anywhere for that matter unless a base closes. Service agreements are also mandated by congress to be a maximum of 5 years. The only way you could be possibly forced to complete 6 to 8 years is if you add on a masters or PhD once you've already agreed to a bachelors degree. I also see "8 to 12 years" being thrown around...for myself, I'm in a 2 year contract so I owe a total of 2... that's 2 years service. At which point I can choose to go into any industries I want or start my own company.

2. The things you would have to do to "mess up" and owe lots of money are: Drug abuse or trafficking, DUI, selling government secrets, etc... I personally don't think most engineering students should have any problems there.

3. I'm sure it doesn't sound particularly interesting to lower tuition universities but at UPenn and alot of other schools, no academic scholarships are given out because everyone would get one. Otherwise it's grab another 50K loan for this year or live on Fastweb until I get 50 1K scholarships if I don't do this program.

4. I'm really not understanding the bashing I'm seeing for trying to make other kids aware of what could be paying for their college tuition and giving them real work experience. I also don't know how these, apparently non-creative and non-independent, engineers ended up getting picked. 200 some awards were given this year out of around 2000 applicants. I would think the most creative and most appealing applications would be chosen.

5. As for the handing your life over...I have never felt more free. No more loans to worry about, no more FAFSA! Plus I'm getting paid to do something I would normally do for free, go to school.

[westfw]

(are you at UPenn? I went to Penn!)

I would imagine things get less than pleasant if you flunk out...

I dunno. A lot of teen to college aged "kids" imagine life as an adult to be full of a lot of freedom that isn't really there. Needing to support yourself is rather limiting, period. Graduating with a large debt burden in either loans or work commitments are limiting in somewhat different ways. As is getting an advanced degree in a (necessarily narrow) field. The SMART program seems to limit your choices sooner than a loan might (but you get a lot more back in return.) And I'm not sure I'd want to have given up those summers with my family for a high-paying job far away (but that's also something that varies a great deal for each individual.)

How hard is it to get accepted into the program?

[woody1189]

(yeah I'm a junior there now, when did you graduate?)

I guess I have a different feeling about the ability to change majors than most other people. I actually started out as Bioengineering but switched to EE after freshman year. I don't really feel any sort of restrictions by the whole difficult to change majors thing. I mean, even switching to another engineering major now would probably set me back an entire year anyway. It's probably different to look at as a freshman applying but I found it as a sophomore and jumped at the chance. Plus they're pretty lenient about adding minors so long as you get the same degree you signed up for and even if you feel the NEED to switch, there's a good change the hiring facility will keep you. I was also told that most facilities absolutely LOVE masters degrees so even if you have just a bachelors, they will help you get a masters possibly right after graduating (some programs give a full year's tuition: summer, fall, and spring semesters to try and get a masters quickly in return for one more year of work). As for the summers, I personally have been fiddling around with projects for the past summers without any formal internship or anything while TONS of other students are in labs and such around the city or at other schools so I cannot wait to actually do something relevant toward my major and get paid.

The program began in 2005 and since there are about 800 some kids already accepted (60 some kids first year, 100 some for the second two years, and about 260 this year). I think they plan to accept about 300 students a year from here on out and the number of applicants was about 2000 this year and seems to be increasing greatly ( I believe last year was about 1200 to 800 the previous years). Apparently there's a bunch of selection stages and then the agencies look over and make top picks so I'm assuming its pretty tough. Although, the total number of acceptances is based on funding so I'm sure kids a lot smarter and much more qualified than me are missing out because of technicalities.

[westfw]

UPenn EE '81.
I talk to the dean of Engineering occasionally when he comes out to Ca, fund-raising. It lends a different perspective than I had when I was a student...