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Shoemaker Scholarship to get masters at NPS prior to Pensacola?

MIDNJAC

MIDNJAC

is clara ship
pilot
Uncle Fester said:
You don’t go to TOPGUN on your shore tour, that’s during your first sea tour (if at all). And I somehow doubt a shortened first shore would be the case, since that would give you a six month shore tour. That's barely enough time to even get through the FITU and get an instructor qual. I can maybe imagining it taking the place of one of your shore tours down the line (when most dudes do postgrad education).

In any case, you'll get a lot more professional mileage out of an NPS degree, in the Navy or out, than going to TG. As a rule of thumb, never pass up good opportunities now in favor of what you might want to do later.
Click to expand...

E-2 guys go during their sea tour, but VFA goes at the beginning of their shore tour. For us, the timing is the same as CAEWWS for you, and it is a bit more career enhancing than just doing the TG AIC/controller course is for you all. But I agree, a masters is a real thing on the outside.

I imagine both first sea and first shore would both be condensed. It is all about NLT DH at that point of the career. Could be good or bad, depending on front office(s) and fitrep performance. Though I'd imagine they would give this person the benefit of the doubt if they had worked their butt off to get an NPS degree and their timing was bad because of it. A couple of my JO squadron buds were similarly well rounded individuals with timing problems who got early high waters to help out. One is a squadron CO, one an XO (who did exactly this), at the moment, so I'd say this isn't an insurmountable hurdle career-wise. I'd do it.
 
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IKE

IKE

Nerd Whirler
pilot
@pedrofuego, did you make a decision yet?
I'm late to the party, but here's some more gouge from a TPS & NPS grad:

Timing
  • PERS-43 (Aviation group) will do everything they can to ensure you can enter your department head tour no later than September of your commissioning year +11. So flight school, FRS, 1st sea, 1 shore, and 2 sea (dissociated) all have to fit in that time. I'm not smart on NFO time to train.
  • Current TPS board guidance is shall have 24 months before DH NLT date and should have 36 months.
  • I skipped my dissociated tour. YMMV, but I certainly wouldn't expect your 1st shore to be shortened more than 1 year (= 2-y tour). Yes, PERS-43 wants to fill dissociated billets, but they are already in the gray giving people less than 36-month tours, I've not heard of less than 27-mo orders (yet).
  • All that said, I'd strongly recommend the shortest program you're interested in.
NPS
  • As others have said, it's a great deal to be paid to go to grad school. In my case, NPS ruined my chances for OP CO, but I wouldn't have done it any other way. (I did it post 1st sea, pre-TPS)
  • The 360 curriculum is what I wish I could've done (I was 580, Sys Eng for Aero). Ops Analysis, also know as Ops Research, is one of NPS' premier programs. They are a prestigious school/program in that world. It's also one of the hardest and most math-intensive programs.
  • The 360 curriculum should give you at least a taste of AI/ML topics, on top of a smorgasbord of prob & stats, if that's an interest.
  • Check the instructions, War College website, etc. but JPME typically isn't available to ENS & LTJG. There are rank requirements for each level of JPME, and NPS can't skirt them just because you're in residence. Also, JPME is 4× 3-credit courses, or one quarter at NPS (See everyone's caveats about timing).
TPS
  • A technical MS certainly makes an applicant stand out.
  • TPS is awesome, and we need more NFO applicants in general.
  • As previously said, TPS opportunity is highly timing dependent (meaning we don't take a pilot/NFO for every aircraft on every board), so not taking a good deal now because there's a chance it'll hurt TPS timing is placing a bet with unknown odds).
 
IKE

IKE

Nerd Whirler
pilot
...and now to be my own counterpoint:
  • What do you want to do when you graduate? More school? Or get out there and start getting it done?
  • Excess time in your career is almost always better than not having enough, especially for fitness reports and choice of orders
  • As of this year, TPS is building a cooperative program with Purdue. If you do get TPS in 4-5 years, Purdue teaches some of the pre-arrival and in-syllabus work, some TPS instructors are adjunct Purdue professors, and you'll only have to do ~6 credits after TPS to finish your MS. (This is the best deal timing-wise)
 
AllAmerican75

AllAmerican75

FUBIJAR
None
Contributor
IKE said:
@pedrofuego, did you make a decision yet?
I'm late to the party, but here's some more gouge from a TPS & NPS grad:

Timing
  • PERS-43 (Aviation group) will do everything they can to ensure you can enter your department head tour no later than September of your commissioning year +11. So flight school, FRS, 1st sea, 1 shore, and 2 sea (dissociated) all have to fit in that time. I'm not smart on NFO time to train.
  • Current TPS board guidance is shall have 24 months before DH NLT date and should have 36 months.
  • I skipped my dissociated tour. YMMV, but I certainly wouldn't expect your 1st shore to be shortened more than 1 year (= 2-y tour). Yes, PERS-43 wants to fill dissociated billets, but they are already in the gray giving people less than 36-month tours, I've not heard of less than 27-mo orders (yet).
  • All that said, I'd strongly recommend the shortest program you're interested in.
NPS
  • As others have said, it's a great deal to be paid to go to grad school. In my case, NPS ruined my chances for OP CO, but I wouldn't have done it any other way. (I did it post 1st sea, pre-TPS)
  • The 360 curriculum is what I wish I could've done (I was 580, Sys Eng for Aero). Ops Analysis, also know as Ops Research, is one of NPS' premier programs. They are a prestigious school/program in that world. It's also one of the hardest and most math-intensive programs.
  • The 360 curriculum should give you at least a taste of AI/ML topics, on top of a smorgasbord of prob & stats, if that's an interest.
  • Check the instructions, War College website, etc. but JPME typically isn't available to ENS & LTJG. There are rank requirements for each level of JPME, and NPS can't skirt them just because you're in residence. Also, JPME is 4× 3-credit courses, or one quarter at NPS (See everyone's caveats about timing).
TPS
  • A technical MS certainly makes an applicant stand out.
  • TPS is awesome, and we need more NFO applicants in general.
  • As previously said, TPS opportunity is highly timing dependent (meaning we don't take a pilot/NFO for every aircraft on every board), so not taking a good deal now because there's a chance it'll hurt TPS timing is placing a bet with unknown odds).
Click to expand...
Were you not given the opportunity to take ML/AI or extra stats courses while in the SE Dept? I was in the SE Dept and most of the courses relied heavily on stats and they were adding more and more ML/AI stuff in my last year there (2020). As an engineer, I would say that the SE program is the best for well-rounded topics to cover but if you really want to dive into probs and stats, then Ops Research is good but very, very hard. You WILL learn to love R in ways you never knew you could love a high-level programming language.
 
IKE

IKE

Nerd Whirler
pilot
AllAmerican75 said:
Were you not given the opportunity to take ML/AI or extra stats courses while in the SE Dept? I was in the SE Dept and most of the courses relied heavily on stats and they were adding more and more ML/AI stuff in my last year there (2020). As an engineer, I would say that the SE program is the best for well-rounded topics to cover but if you really want to dive into probs and stats, then Ops Research is good but very, very hard. You WILL learn to love R in ways you never knew you could love a high-level programming language.
Click to expand...
580 was a unique curriculum as part of a co-op with TPS. We did only 5 quarters at NPS, and 4 of our classes were JPME, so maybe just 1 elective. The closest we got to OR was Campaign Analysis; great course, but no AI/ML and none in the SW SE class either.
 
AllAmerican75

AllAmerican75

FUBIJAR
None
Contributor
IKE said:
580 was a unique curriculum as part of a co-op with TPS. We did only 5 quarters at NPS, and 4 of our classes were JPME, so maybe just 1 elective. The closest we got to OR was Campaign Analysis; great course, but no AI/ML and none in the SW SE class either.
Click to expand...
Understood. I don't think we had any TPS bubbas going through at Monterey when I was there but the TPS coop program always seemed like a good deal for a Masters given how technical TPS already is. I can understand how frustrating it could be to not be given much flexibility in your schedule and curriculum. That's the one downside of NPS is that the Navy largely tells you what your curriculum is and what classes to take and when.
 
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