Personally I would never recommend enlisting especially if you have a degree. Quality of life is a big difference along with the pay. I would just take the OAR again, shoot for as high as possible and see what you may be competitive for. You can submit to up to 3 boards at a time I believe. You would just rank them.
Youre not Applying for OCS directly, youre more so Applying for a certain Designator (I.E NFO, PAO, SNA) if you are selected when those designator boards convene. youll be given a OCS date to attend. therefore you need to select a specific designator to apply too
Trying to get into the MC rate is almost as impossible as trying to become a PAO with no experience, the MC spots are few and far between.
To be perfectly frank, it sounds to me like you don't know what you want to do in the Navy. PAO is almost certainly out of the question, and I do not recommend you diving into another designator, like NFO, that you don't know anything about and aren't passionate for. What's your degree in? Why Navy? Why military? What's your long term goal beyond a potential 4-8 year period in the Navy? What do you want to be when you grow up, because Naval Officer doesn't seem like that's your thing. It seems like a place holder until you figure things out.
my degree is in communications. i've always wanted to join the military but decided the navy was the best branch for me. it is also the only branch that allows for all of my tattoos. that's the whole problem though, i'm not sure what i want to do in the navy and so i wanted to join to see what my options are however as an officer you can't just join for the hell of it, you need a specific designator; which brings me back to my original question in the first place, of whether i should just enlist first instead to see if i even like the military life before making that leap to officer rank
If you aren't sure you would like it then you really won't like it as an enlisted, worst case is you go enlisted and you are being told by some 19 year old woman who barely graduated HS that you need to clean the toilets this week.
What tattoos of yours does the Navy allow that the other services do not? Also, that's a horrible criterion to base a service decision on. Why not get into corporate PR or journalism? What was your post-college plan when you decided to get a communications degree?
I know it’s a horrible criterion to go on but unfortunately tattoos do disqualify me from majority of the branches. I have finger tattoos and a sleeve. But the Navy is the best fit for me, I want to be by the coast and to travel - my cousin is in the Navy and so I’ve been told his experience first hand and he loves it. I majored in Communications because it’s very broad and while I was in college, I was young and confused with what I wanted to do with my life. Not everyone knows what they want to do (and many of us pick a career and end up changing it because how are we supposed to pick a life long career at the age of 18?) Moving forward, the original field that I wanted to go into in the Navy was Public Affairs Officer - I am very passionate about journalism and broadcasting and took many radio and PR classes in college. However, I was told it was nearly impossible to do so obviously I can’t do that anymore. Which is why I am again lost and trying to find a field that would be a good fit for me while serving in the military. I want to join the military and that decision hasn’t changed. Even when I graduated high school I wanted to join but decided to get my college degree first. There’s no doubt in my mind I want to join
Some food for thought:
Aviation has the best bases only because HSM has the best bases.
Not throwing any judgement, as I also have some ink, but how many PR or broadcasting jobs do you think are open to you if you have visible tattoos on your hands. Get that shit removed.
Finger tattoos.
Those are hard to cover up, unless you wear gloves at work all the time, that could raise some questions though......