Career after the Marines

[phrogdriver]

Look, I think the answer is staring everyone in the face.

If all you want to do is design shit, then by all means go straight into engineering. You will be more technically proficient in the trade, and gain experience figuring what type of motor oil goes into a Fetzer Valve (it's Prestone....uh, make that Quaker State).

If you want to go into the management side of a business at some point, then you will gather valuable experience in the military.

I don't know what kind of engineering you're in, but have you thought about the USAF, which has several engineering fields as actual initial accession MOSs or the Navy, which has Nuke and Civil Engineering as fields? You'll stay proficient in a technical field and still serve.

If you need to be talked into flying a jet at Mach Schnell, or a helo at 100 knots and 100 feet, then it might not be the right fit anyway.

 

[WinterMute]

I don't know how someone could even want to go into design or hardcore engineering after spending 8+ years as an aviator anyways. There are far bigger things you can do with engineering than design or qa/qc and 8 years of military leadership and being responsible for a multi-million dollar aircraft can only help.

Bigger is relative, and Design is a big subject. Do you think flying an aircraft is "Bigger"than...Inventing the Pacemaker or transistor say? Each individual has to ask his/herself where they fit in and where they can make the biggest difference. If you would make an awesome designer and a crappy manager, do design. If you would make an awesome Marine and a crappy engineer or vice-verse....

 

[StompinNightmare]

Phrogpilot already made an amazing post, so I'll just focus on something minor.

Honestly, the engineering world much prefers masters degrees and doctorates to experience. That would be the direction I'd go, if I were interested in that sort of thing.

Not quite. I've met my fair share of engineers who were once Officers. One even used the military to fund his Masters and part of his PhD. A great deal of engineering jobs out there are for the government (NASA as an example) or government contractors (Lockheed, Boeing, etc). All those groups see former service as a major plus, and with the fact many officers can get their Masters while in the service, then you're essentially killing two birds. Of course, there are some fields of engineering where your academic record will matter more than your service record, but with none of those will your service not count for anything.

 

[gaijin6423]

Recently returned from a MARCORSYSCOM sponsored testing trip for some new systems, I'll just say that, while there were bundles o' engineers darting this way and that, the project managers were mainly former military. As were most of the people who had the vaguest clue of what was going on. No serious slight to the engineering bubbas out there, but the ones I've encountered were absorbed in the specifics of their piece of the pie that they were missing the bigger picture. I'm not an engineer (if I were, my current job search would already be over), but I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing. We NEED those kinds of people so deep in the weeds that the dandelions are coughing up pocket protectors. But we also need the kind of people who can both relate to the engineers (no 'Office Space' remarks, please), based on a relatively technical background, and deal with the end users, Program Office, etc, etc.

I could relate some horror stories from my dealings with a certain program of record in particular, but I think that I signed a paper somewhere that says I'm not supposed to. Suffice it to say that the operational experience brought by my Marines and I to the testing process was considered both invaluable, and infallible...almost to a fault.

 

[craftingraptor]

Not quite. I've met my fair share of engineers who were once Officers. One even used the military to fund his Masters and part of his PhD. A great deal of engineering jobs out there are for the government (NASA as an example) or government contractors (Lockheed, Boeing, etc). All those groups see former service as a major plus, and with the fact many officers can get their Masters while in the service, then you're essentially killing two birds. Of course, there are some fields of engineering where your academic record will matter more than your service record, but with none of those will your service not count for anything.

I don't think we're disagreeing. In my post that you quoted, I was actually carrying over the implied goal of engineering for the sake of "design" and not "management." Military is a total plus because of the reasons you mentioned, but for someone that doesn't like the Military route for whatever reason and wants to quickly climb the engineering ladder, getting a Masters or Ph.D. is better than just working for 8 years.

 

[phrogdriver]

All of which goes to further the notion that in the management side of things it will help to have management, e.g. military, experience.

If you want to stay on the technical side, then it helps to have more technical experience, as one would get by either work or academic experience.

Different strokes...

This is all common sense, really. We've gone 'round and 'round on this thread, but it all boils down to that. Employers who need management/generalist experience will want what a veteran brings to the table. If you want a more specialized job, you'll need to go a route that provides specialized experience, likely not a military one.

 

[LMA1085]

Im certainly on that boat. IM currently working towards a pilot slot for this june and Im sitting on a Mechanical and Aeronautical engineering degree. I hope I will be able to have a job after my commitment, but Ill take it one step at a time. Any thoughts?

 

[StompinNightmare]

I don't think we're disagreeing. (and some more stuff)

Ah, when you put it that way, then we're in total agreement. Either I misread a part of your original post or just didn't get it.

 

[jtmedli]

Im certainly on that boat. IM currently working towards a pilot slot for this june and Im sitting on a Mechanical and Aeronautical engineering degree. I hope I will be able to have a job after my commitment, but Ill take it one step at a time. Any thoughts?

Yeah, worry about:
A) Getting the slot
B) Getting through OCS
C) Getting through Flight School
D) Your 8-10 year commitment...
...(insert other crap here)...
Z) Getting a job after that 10 years is up.

In other words, don't put the cart before the horse. We're all here to get commissioned and winged so let's worry about that first. Having an engineering degree doesn't mean that is all you're qualified to do or have to do it at some point in time. If you wanna sit in a cubicle and play on MATLAB so bad then by all means go do that. IF you wanna fly jets/heloes/turboprops off a boat for a living then you found the right forum. God forbid you actually enjoy that and wanna do it for, I dont know, 20 years or more. Besides, no one can tell you what the state of job availability in the Navy will be a year from now so what makes you think anyone here is gonna be able to tell you whether or not there's going to be an engineering job available in 10 years?

 

[LMA1085]

I have been worrying about all you stated Jt, I was just getting ahead of myself; Plus Ive been wanting to go pilot since forever. Hope u didnt misunderstand my statement.

 

[EM1toNFO]

And to beat the horse some more.... You'll also be able to show 6+ years of being drug free and (as previously mentioned) the ability to hold a security clearance. These things are the in-tangibles that you can't really weigh.

 

[SWACQ]

And to beat the horse some more.... You'll also be able to show 6+ years of being drug free and (as previously mentioned) the ability to hold a security clearance. These things are the in-tangibles that you can't really weigh.

How about the ability to show up to work on time, period. Many of our ground side peers who did 4 years and got out, particularly those who went on to be managers, start their own business, etc, say its incredibly difficult in the civilian world to get people to show up to work on time.