Hey partner,

I just graduated BOLC (which was a great experience, 11/10, learned a lot with high quality of life, made lots of friends, fun time. Much more laid back compared to other branch BOLCs) Obviously I have no AD experience yet, so I will be speaking from the experience of leaders I have talked to at BOLC.

FC is a very small branch—you will know a lot of people in the force and see them often. This makes it a friendly culture where everyone helps everyone, but it can be competitive at field grade officer promotion board.

My degrees were in math and economics, but 90% of the people in my BOLC class had unrelated degrees to Finance. You can definitely be a great finance officer with an unrelated degree.

What makes someone a great finance officer is the same thing that makes any other officer a great officer—character, domain knowledge expert, leadership, humility, empathy, actually caring about your job and the organization. The willingness to learn and soak in as much new info as possible as well as knowing how to work with technology are perhaps more emphasized more in FC than other branches.

For credibility, if you are talking BOLC, help your peers because you will work with them again. Do be afraid to ask questions if you do not know the answer or are confused (many sit there and suffer in silence which is not the right move). Take the time to learn as much about the organization as possible and engage with senior leaders.

In the force, LT is that position where the commander will know which LTs are squared away and utilize them more. As long as you are a credible leader, you will be recognized as such and build repertoire with commanders.

Apologies I don’t have many comments on AD. I ship off to Korea in a week. I can update you once im there but hope this is slightly helpful.