WTI is a 7 week, 6 days a week, 12 hours a day face raping that gets you a patch, an MOS (7577), and supposedly makes you more valuable to your community and the Marine Corps in general.
What squeeze said. It's been three years since I went, so details on some things are fuzzy. There is usually some sort of flight leadership qual(s) you have to have that vary by community. For us, in addition to normal squadron designations, we had to have already passed two MAWTS certs before the course, so the instructors and students knew each other quite well long before we got to Yuma. Something I remember is that academics went common, generic, specific, but flights went the opposite direction. We started with aircraft specifics, initially doing flights that are hard for us to do at home. Then we put together Tacair strike packages, and then played with everybody for the last couple of weeks. Most communities can do sims in Yuma, Miramar, or Pendleton, but we didn't have that ability. Our "Warm up" flight was one of the hardest flights we did out there because we had to do so much. We had to refresh every T&R code we could in 3 hours. Somewhere in the mix we visited all the Command and Control (C2) entities to see how they worked, went to China Lake, and got a smattering of briefs from outside agencies. There are flight leadership roles for each event and everybody gets their chance to brief in front of the entire auditorium at least once. There are also various LNO billets that get filled for the big events and you may get one of those. The idea is to replicate how an actual MAGTF would plan an actual mission on a large scale.
Non-aviators also go to the course. C2 and air intel also send students, as well as FAC/Air Officers going through the Air Officer Course.
Bads?
-You get your shit pushed in constantly.
-The "BOQ" suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks.
What? Only two bads? They're bad enough.
Goods?
-The result of getting your shit pushed in constantly is that you get pretty good at what you're there for.
-Make new connections.
-You'll probably spend an extra year in the squadron after you finish. That might go in the "Bads" depending on your squadron.
-The "BOQ" is walking/stumbling/fireman's carrying distance from the club.
-River City Grill.
This article does a pretty good job of summarizing the course and its objectives:
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/art...uma-home-base-key-Marine-Corps-tactics-course