Brett327 said:
The gouge on the street is that the ACSC route is the least painfull. Any amplifying info? Was it irritatingly Air Force slanted, or was the info a value to you? I've seen the basic lowdown on their website, but just wanted skinny from someone who has seen the coursework.
At least until recently, all the other non-resident Phase 1 courses were quota controlled - I tried for several years to get into the NWC distance learning, and never made the cut. ACSC is open to all, including USN O-3s. Just get onto the website, sign up, and they mail you the materials. You can then go to any of about a kajillion "Testing Sites" to take the 6 tests. Do three online assignments (a self-assessment, a "Captain's Call" speech, and an ATO-cyclish wargame), and you're done. Can't speak to the material in the other Service courses, but ease of access makes ACSC the choice if you want to just knock it out.
The material is a mix of history, current ops issues, and some management theory. I wouldn't say it's Air Force centric, although it certainly has an "airpower uber alles" slant at times. Since a good chunk of the material is about how a CAOC is stuctured and how an air campaign is fought, it really helps to have worked OEF, OIF, or ONW/OSW. With minimal effort, you can apply what you learned in real life to some of the more academic aspects and pass. To be perfectly honest, 2 of the 6 tests I took without ever cracking the books - just to see if I could. Got some of my higher scores on those two...
The test makers are kind of tricky, though - they are some of the best multiple choice tests I've taken. By "best", I mean able to determine whether you did your homework and read the material. Standard 4 answers, two of which you can usually throw out. The other two, though, tend to both make sense - if you do the reading, you'll get it. If you don't, you'll have to pretty careful about how you choose your answers. (Also, some of the questions relate to movie files that come on the CDs they send you, but are not in the reading. You end up with questions like "In the video presentation by Col Hapablap, he states that....") A very helpful site is
http://allpme.com; you can sign up, pay a few bucks, and get access to what the Air Force calls "Dirty Purples" - cliff notes for ACSC. Gouge-o-matic.
Useful? Maybe. I had already picked up a lot, thanks to the Navy + day job. I think making it mandatory for all is a very good idea though, because some of the concepts are important, and it's too easy to keep your head down & blinders on in some jobs/career tracks. By exposing people to a common set of material, hopefully it will help break down some of the inter-Service misunderstandings. Of course, the Air Force is still as a$$ed-up as a football bat, but that's a topic for another time....