Military Recruiting Ads Thread

[Spekkio]

Fascinating. From where did this predictor come? Clearly it wasn’t so during the Navy’s “golden” years of 1942 to 1952 when many combat officers didn’t even hold a college degree. It wasn’t the case in Vietnam where NavCads and AVROCS flew and commanded strikes without even finishing a degree. SWOs didn’t even have a school house until the 1970’s, learning their skill in much the same way Preble and Triston did. I’m not trying to be obtuse, I ask seriously. Is this, perhaps, a Rickoverian thing?

Are you suggesting we should just forget all the lessons with officers lacking education that led to Goldwater Nichols because it worked more than 75 years ago?

I haven't seen whether there's data or not to suggest technical majors do better at learning to employ today's Navy, which is why I specifically said "the Navy has decided..."

In other words, as a non technical major I don't really have a dog in the fight.

 

[Spekkio]

Ok, let’s add that hypothesis to the NPS dissertation then. I agree with you that the Navy accepted that as a fact, however not convinced there is any data to back it up.

The beauty of liberal arts and lots of writing is forcing a person to read a lot of stuff, analyze it, and then argue a point. Technical majors do write, but there is a difference in summarizing lab results or analyzing data and making an argument based on history.

I would agree the data doesn't exist.

The other question to add is not one about individual leadership performance, but what % of officers being technical majors are required to have a "critical mass" of aptitude as an organization and what is the impact to "off ramp" career paths that can make use of engineering majors?

 

[CommodoreMid]

I would agree the data doesn't exist.

The other question to add is not one about individual leadership performance, but what % of officers being technical majors are required to have a "critical mass" of aptitude as an organization and what is the impact to "off ramp" career paths that can make use of engineering majors?

Also don’t disagree with your question. Ultimately my hunch (which in line with this thread has no data to support) is that the NROTC STEM major push has more to do with trying to push mids to going nuke rather than think about the performance of URLs overall. My counter, which remains the same since 2006 when I did a SWO nuke cruise which convinced me I should do anything but SWO nuke, is that if we want to make more people go nuke, we should make nuke suck less.

 

[Spekkio]

Also don’t disagree with your question. Ultimately my hunch (which in line with this thread has no data to support) is that the NROTC STEM major push has more to do with trying to push mids to going nuke rather than think about the performance of URLs overall.

A STEM degree isn't required for nuke, only a year of calculus and calculus based physics.

 

[CommodoreMid]

A STEM degree isn't required for nuke, only a year of calculus and calculus based physics.

Yes, but the rules now for NROTC require an absurdly high number of mids to be STEM majors. Couldn’t find the big Navy reference so here’s one of the school pages

https://naval.dasa.ncsu.edu/join-nrotc/navy-tier-system/

Very difficult to get a scholarship if you’re non STEM.

 

[PhrogPhlyer]

While attending AWS at Quantico in 1983, the CMC Gen. Barrow spoke to the AWS class.
He posed a question whether the requirement that one must have a HS diploma to enlist in the Marines really improved the Corps.
He lamented that he would not be able to join the Marines at that time, as he had 2 1/2 years of college and no HS diploma.
The following discussion was spirited and blunt.
Hard to say that he did not exemplify all a Marine could be, having gone from recruit, to DI to OCS to 2Lt in a little over a year; and then rising to be CMC.

 

[Gatordev]

That's because Marine company grade officers have balls and Navy junior officers (meaning O4 and below) don't.

We can have honest conversations.

But...I was in the Navy...and I was an O-4 and below in these scenarios. You've completely lost me now.

Meh, people read "functionally illiterate" and misconstrued that means they can't read and write basic sentences

I'm not sure your definition of "functional illiteracy" matches the rest of the world. From Googling several definitions, it seems it's more focused at the lower level of writing versus your more broad interpretation. That said, I do take you point...

If you've ever gone back and forth with a few emails and had to resolve the issue with a phone call, you've encountered someone who is functionally illiterate

While I don't agree he's functionally illiterate, this is any day in a week interacting with my boss.

 

[Brett327]

Ok, let’s add that hypothesis to the NPS dissertation then. I agree with you that the Navy accepted that as a fact, however not convinced there is any data to back it up.

The beauty of liberal arts and lots of writing is forcing a person to read a lot of stuff, analyze it, and then argue a point. Technical majors do write, but there is a difference in summarizing lab results or analyzing data and making an argument based on history.

This jibes with my experience as well. As a general rule, engineering majors are poor writers. They also tend to think in more absolute, less nuanced terms. Synthesis of ideas is different than aggregating data.