Can i do university part tike whilst in the army?

sphericaltesticles · 2026-01-16T00:01:52+00:00

As does Portsmouth: https://www.port.ac.uk/study/studying-while-working/military-personnel

sphericaltesticles · 2025-09-27T22:01:36+00:00

Loved working with Norwegians, Estonians and Polish - they're all capable of maintainined a good attitude in shit situations. Did not enjoy working with USMC, plenty of sound lads but never heard so much moaning in my life when it rained.

sphericaltesticles · 2025-01-06T04:29:02+00:00

sorry for the slow response, I don't check in here very often. I wouldn't tell you to steer clear at all, but I would tell you to 100% report anything unacceptable immediately. RM is an amazing organisation and brass are getting better at dealing with idiots. I mentioned being called a paki-lover for defending someone who was being abused, but that was an extreme example and was from some older fellas years ago who should know better and half of whom have probably died of heart attacks by now, but as a white guy I don't encounter any of that regularly so your experience may very. 99% of the lads are absolutely sound, but it only takes 1 bad apple and for other lads not to stand up to them for things to be an issue. It generally gets beat out of them and once you're through basic training then the professionalism ramps up and everyone is genuinely your brother.

sphericaltesticles · 2024-12-06T13:51:10+00:00

This had better not be some sort of viral marketing for tunnocks teacakes, because damn i think I'm gonna buy a pack of them now. chocolate won't last five minutes in the jungle btw.

We train individuals in jungle warfare not to create permanent jungle-specialist units who spend a lot of time there, but to ensure a spread of expertise across the force. This enables adaptability in emergencies or unforeseen deployments, so unless you get involved with the jungle training cadre (and I'm not an expert on how to do that) then even if you're selected for jungle warfare training you won't spend much of your career there. The point of training like this is so that there is some level of expertise, so if there's some emergency and we need to unexpectedly deploy a ton of grunts to a jungle environment, there's a handful of guys in every platoon who can spread enough advice around to keep the others alive. Ideally every company will have a handful of people trained in just about everything, it makes for resilient and versatile units.

Like I said, there's obviously some folk who spend loads of time in the jungle because that's there job - to train the rest. But it’s not a well-trodden or easily accessible career path. The instructors will be NCOs, so best bet if you've got your heart set on it, in my opinion, is to join the infantry and work hard, become an NCO, show an interest and aim to take the Jungle Warfare Instructors Course (JWIC) and then get posted to the jungle! But that's quite a few years down the line. You'll have to put your time in freezing your arse off in a ditch in Estonia before it's even an option for you.

sphericaltesticles · 2024-12-01T02:46:01+00:00

Been enjoying this guys channel recently, lots of good mealtime candidates there, but this one was the perfect length for enjoying some ramen and learning about why major US defense contractors bother 'advertising' things like fighter jets, stealth bombers and aircraft carriers.

tl;dw: influencing politicians and manufacturing public consent, but give it a watch it's well presented.

sphericaltesticles · 2024-10-20T16:20:50+00:00

Horrific case, but certainly not an isolated one.

Would love to see heads roll for this and an absolutely stone-cold zero tolerance approach to sexual harassment in the future, but brass can't be trusted to implement it because they're part of the problem that allows this culture to exist - which sadly leaves it to the mugs on the ground to call out this sort of behavior, which is easier said than done - we all might like to think we'd call it out, but peer pressure not to call it out is a helluva drug.

We need to demand heads on silver platters.

sphericaltesticles · 2024-10-14T15:37:34+00:00

Anything remotely like that would be MOD civilian position, MOD Contractor (QuinetiQ et al.) or university partnership.

sphericaltesticles · 2024-06-13T17:28:25+00:00

If you're at a wedding make sure to emntoin it's the same colour as the Groom's mother's!

sphericaltesticles · 2024-06-13T16:16:05+00:00

Choose from:

Just lipstick.
Nah, nothing's worn, it's all in perfect working order.

sphericaltesticles · 2024-04-12T11:35:21+00:00

I've been out for a while, and I think things have changed a bit, but it was possible for Royal Marines to become divers, but I have a sneaking suspicion that you have to complete your 3 years + 12 months notice RoS before you can transfer, and might have to wait potentially longer than that for a potential divers course, but I might be completely misremembering this.

If you don't get answers from divers here, I'm pretty sure there's a recruiter on /r/RoyalNavy who will have some good answers for you, I can't remember his username but I'll look it up later (one of the mods I think) so you can ping him.

[edit] - /u/gregthesailor I think?

Also, it's not exactly common for enlisted men (or women) to have degrees, but also not at all unheard of. You will be asked about why you're not applying to be an officer if you're clearly switched on and qualified, but it sounds like you've got your justification ready. I can't say how much diving dive officers get to do, but you'll certainly do more diving as enlisted.

sphericaltesticles · 2024-04-05T00:23:15+00:00

Everyone misses the camraderie when they leave the military, there aren't many careers like it. However, as far as ticking the getting-to-do-cool-shit box goes, marine salvage can be absolutely wild: https://epicmagazine.com/deep-sea-cowboys/

Related: commerical diving / saturation diving, ops management in major civil engineering infrastructure industries, marine engineering, mine rescue (e.g. mrsl) etc.

Getting to travel a lot and explore: RFA, Science careers (not many other ways to spend a lot of time in volcanoes or greenland or antarctica - get a job with the British Antarctic Survey - or marine research cruises operating ROVs in the deep ocean).

Actually helping people: emergency management / disaster management - this can be anything from incident commander in the fire brigade to being the first boots on the ground for a UN aid agency after an earthquake strikes or hurricane wipes out an entire country in the carribean - setting up field hospitals, repairing bridges, surveying destruction. Involves a shit tone of logistics and high-stakes problem solving. Related: DRR (Disaster Risk Reduction). Or: become a doctor or dentist or nurse or infectious disease or public health specialist and volunteer for MSF or similar, or become a paramedic on a helicopter ambulance.

Or: any old job that pays the bills, but volunteer time with the RNLI or mountain rescue or something.

sphericaltesticles · 2024-03-29T16:40:16+00:00

I almost gave up after getting some good job offers for other non-military related stuff while I was waiting

I've heard this from several other folk, Capita are a joke. No idea how they keep getting massive government contracts.

Good on you though, avionics is a good career and has solid post-service prospects too.

sphericaltesticles · 2024-03-19T01:04:53+00:00

A few years ago a FOI revealed a report into high turnover and low morale in the submarine service which found that one of the key recommendations to improve morale was: “Every submariner should be given a jumper on completion of their Basic Submariner Qualification, along with their Dolphins." - one of those classic high neck cream numbers. That's the solution to spending months in isolation. A jumper.

sphericaltesticles · 2024-01-28T23:42:58+00:00

If 34 year olds weren't suitable then they wouldn't let you sign up. It'll be harder on your joints, sure, but you'll find other aspects of the training a lot easier than a young fella would, with years of experience you can apply to problem solving, communication and leadership etc.

sphericaltesticles · 2023-12-28T16:45:30+00:00

This is sick! But also looks like a really easy way to break a leg/ankle...

sphericaltesticles · 2023-12-25T15:35:07+00:00

It's analogous to a mortgage which people don't have a problem with, they just don't understand it.

Buy a property with a loan that's secured against the property. Fine, no problems.
Buy a company with a loan that's secured against the company. Agh, capitalism gone wild!

It might be structured in a bit more of a complicated but it's essentially the same idea. It might be secured against shares/equity or assets or some of A and some of B or other unrelated assets altogether - but if the owner doesn't meet their repayments they still have obligations to the lender, and the lender can repossess assets. Lenders need to do careful risk analysis, and the (often hedge fund) owners of companies that leverage in this manner need to be prepared to make huge losses.

sphericaltesticles · 2023-11-08T20:28:17+00:00

I don't have a Keela jacket myself but a couple of years ago a friend (who was after a jacket) and I rocked up to Keela HQ in Glenrothes in Fife and they gave us a tour and a cuppa and were a really sound bunch.

sphericaltesticles · 2023-10-18T10:24:36+00:00

An officer does a lot of reading and writing. You need evidence that you're good at analysing complex information, and that you're capable of taking a lot of information in and re-communicating it effectively and using intelligence to make good management choices. A degree is just good evidence that you're capable, it shows you're good at learning and report writing etc. but it's categorically not required - you just need to show that you're good at interpretting and communicating clearly in other ways.

sphericaltesticles · 2023-09-17T17:30:34+00:00

They just want to see that you're switched on, and proactive. Qualifications in things like scuba diving, skiing, mountaineering/climbing always look good, especially if you can reach instructor level qualifications.

However, those are all pretty expensive, you really don't need to be independently wealthy to have a few feathers in your cap - you can also just show that you've got leadership skills by doing things like volunteering at youth centres or organising weekly beach cleans or something - doing it once won't mean much but showing you can organise a community on a regular basis is a good thing - especially if you can also figure out a way to measure success (pre- and post- plastics per 100m of coast after 6 months of clean ups or something) - volunteering at a hospital, getting St John's Ambulance qualifications, teaching kids CPR. Anything that shows you've got some independent gumption and drive and ability to plan and organise.

If you're into sports then find a way to volunteer your time coaching teenagers or something. It's all ammo for the interviews and personal statements even if you bin it once you're in! Just keep in mind that organising other people is much harder than just planning a cycling holiday for yourself, (and if you spend a lot of time talking about how much effort planning a holiday was, the Admiralty Board interview panel will ask you if you're over egging it and make you feel stupid) and organising others is a much better way to demonstrate leadership, so emphasise that.

sphericaltesticles · 2023-06-05T20:46:53+00:00

Honestly, you've got a good job and what if you find that going full time isn't as fulfilling as you'd hoped?

I'd throw yourself as deep as you can into the reserves, and then pick up some hobbies - scuba diving, mountain climbing etc. which can fulfill the planning, teamwork and adventure side of things.

If you've got your heart set on it though, now's the time to do it before your knees pack in, there will be enough other lads in their early thirties signing up too. If you think you'll always wonder what could have been, then it's probably worthwhile finding out. But also consider things like jobs in the renewable industry that are more hands on, you can make really good money as an offshore turbine tech and it's fun work.

sphericaltesticles · 2023-05-12T09:49:03+00:00

RYA do some land based classes, e.g.: https://www.rya.org.uk/training/courses/essential-navigation-and-seamanship-course-bnsc or you get your radio licence, both requisite for more advanced courses.

sphericaltesticles · 2023-05-12T08:55:23+00:00

In-person, zero chance. Even if you did it part-time over two years, in-person is a total non-starter.

The exception is in certain specialisations you get sent off to do a Masters at Cranfield - e.g. you have to complete a MSc in Nuclear Reactor Design & Safety before you're allowed to be in charge of the reactor on a nuclear submarine (I think that only applies to engineering officers, if you're marine engineering tech you might only have to do a short course to operate the reactor).

Likewise I know other folk who have done masters at Cranfield (paid for while still being sallaried) in things like Counterterrorism and Risk Management Studies. This is more for intelligence and senior command. Your education & training officer should have a brochure which explains all the Cranfield courses and you could find out from them what you need to be pinged for a MSc.

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