I recently attended the mini-OCS for RS Springfield at Camp Fogarty this past weekend. It was a great learning experience - just by getting a taste of it I feel able to better prepare myself for actually going there. We were issued dummy rifles and had classes on customs & courtesies, weapons handling, land nav, 5 paragraph order, code of conduct, and rope climbing. We conducted a PFT, ran an obstacle/confidence course, LRCs, and had a few hours doing drill with the sergeant instructors.
The sergeant instructor time was great, they were some of the most professional people I've met...I'm also not sure when I'll get my voice back either. They were fair , demanding, and extremely knowledgeable. We had about 1 Sgt. Instructor for ~60 candidates however, and were told it is a much different experience when you have 4 Sgt. Instructors for the same size group.
We had Q&As with candidates awaiting commissioning, lieutenants awaiting pickup for TBS, the OSOs, the OSAs, and the CO & Sgt.Maj. of the RS. I think I filled half of my notebook with notes - by the end I was struggling to come up with any more questions to ask. The lack of sleep added some challenge - we had lights out from 2130 to 0515 though it was eye-opening to experience that often-spoken-of dilemma of how much preparing for tomorrow do I want to do tonight versus how much sleep do I want to get.
Overall, great experience, I feel much better suited to prepare for OCS.