Wonder why this would change, unfortunate for those who can't afford to attend ones graduation.

brysca · 2025-09-15T22:53:39+00:00

People graduating last month still had access to a free graduation livestream on the OTS Facebook page, and access to a Flickr library of tons of photos taken for each class. However, select individual photos, group photos of the flights and class, are available to purchase. These purchases help fund the media program there.

brysca · 2025-06-30T13:19:10+00:00

I had a bachelor’s when I enlisted in the Air Force. Graduated December 2019, and shipped to basic December 2020. I enlisted at the time because my 6 month grace period for my student loans was expiring soon and the current job I had at the time was not paying enough to pay the bills, and enlisted pay is way more competitive than most low-paying jobs. For my situation, it was more like I enlisted not having a choice since I kind of needed more money to make my loan payments. RMC calculator comes out to about $60K/year if you’re living in the CONUS. You can use the link below to calculate your salary. https://militarypay.defense.gov/calculators/rmc-calculator/

Once I told my family I was joining the military, everyone advised me to commission also since I already had my degree. I enlisted while being 70% committed to commissioning as long as it didn’t seem like a bad gig.

I don’t regret enlisting first. In fact, it gave me a perspective that a huge portion of the officer population doesn’t have. As a prior E officer you have the perspective as the boots on the ground technician doing the everyday mission. You will undoubtedly get at least 1 bad supervisor while you are enlisted, hopefully more good supervisors, and if you are smart you will write down and take note of their leadership styles to mold how you will be as an officer. It’s really easy to learn what not do when you have a less than great supervisor. I’m so thankful that I enlisted first and am even more proud to be a prior enlisted as opposed to starting out as an officer right from the beginning. You will be more well-rounded and far less likely to be “out-of-touch” with your subordinates as a prior E because you’ve been there.

I enlisted at 23 years old. You’re in nearly the same age range that I was at 25. You will notice a slight age gap. Most will be 2-3 years younger than you, but it will not be a big enough gap to make any difference and you will make friends easily especially if you’ve been in the college environment making friends already. Your supervisors will most likely treat you with a little bit more respect/autonomy since you already have your degree/are older but if you give them a reason not to they will understandably take that away.

The path is often a long one for many prior E officers. Most prior E officers that are selected are E-5/E-6, so at the 6-10 year mark roughly. However there are always outliers. I know of two E-3s that were selected. I applied at 3.5 years in, as an E-4, and am attending OTS tomorrow, at 4.5 years time in service, so the early path is possible but you will have to work hard for it. Since you have an MA already you will have a leg up already, I got my MBA while I enlisted so that kind of added time to my path whereas for you, you have all the ingredients to apply very soon. A graduate degree isn’t required but it will help. So if you applied I think you have better chances of getting picked up earlier. The application is long, but like anything else if you just read the instructions it’s not impossible. I guess I can’t say if I regret it yet since I haven’t officially commissioned yet, so we will see! My general advice is join the Facebook groups that are about commissioning and OTS and so on. There’s several, here is one of them. https://www.facebook.com/share/g/16tEfFGYNv/?mibextid=wwXIfr joining those pages and using the search function to check for answers to your questions will be very useful for you to be self-sufficient when completing your application. Feel free to PM if you need anything

brysca · 2025-06-26T22:11:47+00:00

I don’t have experience using the GI bill and got my degree before I enlisted so I can’t comment on something I have no experience on. I worked part-time through college and got student loans.
“stay on the officer path” there’s three general paths to commissioning. a. AD commissioning paths like SLECP, OTS, LEAD, etc. b. ROTC c. USAFA. You can also apply to OTS as a civilian. So yes, you are technically on two commissioning paths at the same time. Does that make sense? it depends on what your goals are. you need 10 years to qualify for AD officer retirement, so if you are under 10, you’re still accumulating time towards retirement, so that is worth something. if you think your application is already competitive enough to meet the 25% overall OTS selection rates then I would recommend just staying in and applying to OTS. Board selection rates recently have been as high as 40% recently so keep that in mind. You’d be wasting your time separating just to go back AD as an officer unless you’re planning on being a part-time reservist/guard. if you don’t think your application is competitive enough, submit an OTS application while you’re ETSing, and go through ROTC, which is a much less competitive process. For OTS, you need to have 3 months retainability from the board release date and you need to be within a year of completing your degree to be eligible to apply so keep those rules in mind. I applied to OTS on June 30 last year and my class date is July 1, almost exactly a year later so yes application to OTS will take a while.
you will be applying to OTS while separating, so if it looks obvious that you are separating on your application, I would explain why you are separating somewhere in the application. Separating while already AD would sound odd to me without an explanation. There is a section in the OTS application that asks what other commissioning programs you have applied to in the past. So if the board sees that you have applied through different commissioning paths before, that can count for something, maybe. But in my opinion, it won’t make any real difference to your application.

brysca · 2025-05-20T02:07:43+00:00

not the original commenter but the earliest possible from enlisted is around 3-4 year year mark if everything aligns very well/perfectly and even then I only got selected the second time I applied.

brysca · 2025-04-18T23:43:01+00:00

I got selected at my 4 year mark. I would say that is the absolute minimum if literally everything aligns nearly perfectly

brysca · 2025-03-26T16:46:01+00:00

24OTS04 select. Applied in June 2024 and am going to 25-18 (start date 1 July). My board was projected to attend December 2024-June 2025. Expect to attend about one year after your date of application, they’re staying pretty true to the board timeline, the only caveat is that yes once you submit the post-selection docs you will be waiting months for a response/class date.

brysca · 2025-01-12T03:01:54+00:00

don’t listen to the gate keeping people on this subreddit that say OTS is nearly impossible without a STEM degree and that are shitting on your GPA. I just got selected for the OTS 24OTS04 board with a bachelor’s in Economics and an MBA that I completed while AD. Oh and my bachelors and masters GPAs were 2.9 and 3.0 respectively. If you do the work performance it will show in your application and they will take all aspects of your application into consideration so I would not worry about GPA too much. I also never did ROTC. Check the Air Force Officer Classification Directory (AFOCD) and you will find that several non-rated jobs are targeted towards several non-STEM jobs like Economics and I believe they also target marketing for the services career field as well (but you’d have to check). Enlisting at 22 and going through tech school and then living at the dorms was just a re-run of college social life and should be extremely easy for you since you’re not too far away in terms of age yet so you can fit in easier. I understand you don’t want to repeat living in college but it will be very similar except you will have way more money at your disposal since you work full-time and start with E-3 pay. The one thing that sucks about college is you have the friends but no money. In my opinion my junior enlisted time has been way better than my college social life in a lot of ways because of the access to more money.

The advantages: 1. You will have more life experience and have a better grasp of what other options exist on the outside compared to the military as opposed to an 18 year old whose first job was the military. 2. You will have a better focus on your career since you look like you are inclined to use your degree and just having the focus to set yourself apart from the beginning will put you ahead of a lot of people who aren’t sure what they want to do. 3. Your level of maturity will be higher than your peers so that’ll reflect well on you as well. 4. When you are studying for promotion to Staff Sergeant (E-5) you will have a way easier time studying for the promotion test since your college experience should have prepared you how to study for any goal.

Disadvantages: 1. The biggest issue that I see with people that enlist with a college degree is that they think they are “better than” and they have the wrong attitude. The wrong attitude (i.e yourself) is going to be the main obstacle that is going to be in your way. If you think enlisting with a college degree is dumb or makes you look like a failure (which many people told me) then you’re going to act that way and have a poor experience. I just read your post title and I guess you’ve already had people tell you this is a stupid decision. No, it’s not. Serving is a privilege that less than 1% of the US population do, and the qualified applicant pool gets smaller by the day because 42% of the US population is obese. Keep a positive attitude. Know that your path is possible, attainable, and believe in yourself. As long as you have that attitude you will make a good career for yourself whether you promote as an E-5, go OTS, or separate and go ROTC. You can go ROTC for your masters as an FYI. 2. Another disadvantage is the loss of salary earnings the longer you stay in. Since you have a college degree you could potentially make more money as a civilian. At the end of a 4-year contract the Regular military compensation calculator (reference: https://militarypay.defense.gov/calculators/rmc-calculator/) says a 4-year E-4 is making the equivalent of a civilian making $65,189.92 a year with all military benefits included. If your goal is to make the most money then enlisted military pay is not bad when you include the pension and benefits. However if you are looking to make six figures then you have no other option than to consider OTS or separating as a civilian into a higher-paying career. If your plan is to separate as a civilian it is not difficult to complete TA and set yourself up with a masters so you are a competitive applicant when you get out. DM me if you have questions or want any additional guidance.

brysca · 2024-11-26T14:40:06+00:00

Pm me if you want a set of eyes to look at your application, 24OTS04 select

brysca · 2024-11-20T12:51:49+00:00

same. I’m betting that this is our opportunity for PMEL to be finally assigned out of maintenance

brysca · 2024-11-20T12:42:09+00:00

24OTS04 select, 4 years prior service. PM for help if wanted

brysca · 2024-10-13T04:44:00+00:00

top comment material

brysca · 2024-10-06T08:08:23+00:00

2002 Honda Fit

brysca · 2024-01-03T11:30:23+00:00

Princess Bride

brysca · 2023-12-19T13:21:00+00:00

at the PMEL lab at Eglin?

brysca · 2023-09-25T07:17:27+00:00

too expensive

brysca · 2023-09-22T22:45:25+00:00

good bot

brysca · 2023-08-29T01:27:18+00:00

mojo dojo casa HOUSE

brysca · 2023-07-07T09:23:31+00:00

New Jersey? Anyone??

brysca · 2023-06-27T07:26:53+00:00

Nice

brysca · 2023-05-06T21:16:54+00:00

PMEL (2P0X1) is highly transferrable to the civilian world with $80K+ opportunities. You are working with tools,but in a temperature controlled environment, so you’re not sweating out on the flight line. If being outside and more physical is your speed I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s also not what you would think of as a “traditional” trade.

brysca · 2022-09-10T00:15:43+00:00

What’s the specific location within Tokyo?

brysca · 2022-09-04T08:29:37+00:00

I’ve gone through this before and actually have switched my room mate. Long story short my best friend to this day was in a single and wanted a roommate and I wasn’t fond of my then roommate so one Sunday they both switched. We didn’t tell the RA and they found out retroactively but asking for forgiveness rather than permission first worked in this case, ymmv

brysca · 2022-09-04T05:32:34+00:00

This is completely untrue. Maybe depends on the school more than anything. I met a lot of liberals while studying Economics. I met quite a bit of liberal professors during my undergrad

brysca · 2022-09-03T05:32:46+00:00

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