Military Recruiting Ads Thread

[Random8145]

The old rib among history professors is that STEM isn't real education, it's vocational training, because of the mindset a STEM education produces vs. liberal arts.

IMO both are needed. People with only liberal arts and no technical knowledge can be utter morons of the highest order about certain things and the same for people with just technical knowledge but no liberal arts.

 

[exNavyOffRec]

Not a true statement. Roughly 35% of any given wardroom on a sub is non-stem, with no impact to career progression.

There's also no data regarding whether tech majors attrite from the pipeline at a different rate than non tech majors. Getting a B+ or better in the pre-requisite courses and having good SAT scores seems to sufficiently predict success.

Of note, the S in STEM doesn't count as technical as far as the nuke community is concerned, so something like a chemistry degree might as well be a BA in theater.

We had a good number of non-STEM on the CVN's I was on too. When I think back to my Reactor Officers I think 1/2-2/3 of them were non-STEM, I know one was History or English major and another one was an Education major, they were both outstanding RO's.

It did seem like most of the non-STEM came from USNA and NROTC. I didn't have many who I sent to DC for interviews for Nuke who were joining via OCS.

 

[Spekkio]

We had a good number of non-STEM on the CVN's I was on too. When I think back to my Reactor Officers I think 1/2-2/3 of them were non-STEM, I know one was History or English major and another one was an Education major, they were both outstanding RO's.

It did seem like most of the non-STEM came from USNA and NROTC. I didn't have many who I sent to DC for interviews for Nuke who were joining via OCS.

I was asked to derive the area of a circle.

It's really easy to pass interviews when the person conducting it is a pocket protecting nerd who treats you like you're retarded. The bar for exceeding expectations is low.

 

[wink]

Not a true statement. Roughly 35% of any given wardroom on a sub is non-stem, with no impact to career progression.

There's also no data regarding whether tech majors attrite from the pipeline at a different rate than non tech majors. Getting a B+ or better in the pre-requisite courses and having good SAT scores seems to sufficiently predict success.

Of note, the S in STEM doesn't count as technical as far as the nuke community is concerned, so something like a chemistry degree might as well be a BA in theater.

And most of those 35% that have non-technical degrees came from the Naval Academy where liberal arts majors graduate with a Bachelor of Science and all Mids take what, at any other university, would be considered an engineering core curriculum through calculus based physics
( a nuke requirement, not ordinary Physics 101/102). Come on now just how many English or history majors at a civ university are going to take, in addition to their degree requirements, 4 semesters of calculus and calc based physic for fun, because that's what you would have to do to qualify as a nuke candidate with a BA degree from State U. The only students doing that are ones required to by virtue of an NROTC scholarship

Absolutely not true that a chemistry degree is worthless in the nuke program. In fact, chemistry is specifically authorized for NUPOC program candidates. Chemistry helps explains what goes on in the nuclear reaction process. I personally put Chem majors in NUPOC.

 

[exNavyOffRec]

I was asked to derive the area of a circle.

It's really easy to pass interviews when the person conducting it is a pocket protecting nerd who treats you like you're retarded. The bar for exceeding expectations is low.

Several years ago I was able to sit down with an NR screener who had been doing this for years, he may have actually screened your academic transcripts. He said when the interviews happen they are not necessarily looking for the right answers which is always great, but they are looking at the problem solving process. The process isn't supposed to be hard but an opportunity for the person to demonstrate their potential.

 

[Spekkio]

And most of those 35% that have non-technical degrees came from the Naval Academy where liberal arts majors graduate with a Bachelor of Science and all Mids take what, at any other university, would be considered an engineering core curriculum through calculus based physics
( a nuke requirement, not ordinary Physics 101/102). Come on now just how many English or history majors at a civ university are going to take, in addition to their degree requirements, 4 semesters of calculus and calc based physic for fun, because that's what you would have to do to qualify as a nuke candidate with a BA degree from State U. The only students doing that are ones required to by virtue of an NROTC scholarship

They come from all commissioning sources. I know because we write the Director about every check in and transfer.

People do sometimes change majors or take intro sequences to keep their options open.

Absolutely not true that a chemistry degree is worthless in the nuke program. In fact, chemistry is specifically authorized for NUPOC program candidates. Chemistry helps explains what goes on in the nuclear reaction process. I personally put Chem majors in NUPOC.

When you go to the interview, they condense your transcript to only technical courses. There are like 3 chemistry courses that count beyond the calculus / physics requirements, and not a soul in DC is going to ask a candidate about advanced physical chemistry, organic chemistry, or biochemistry because working through something like an SN2 mechanism for selective alkylation reactions is not something the program cares about or hires anyone to do. You get the same softball interviews as an English Literature major. If you took a thermodynamics course then that would be fair game but that's about it.

You put chemistry majors into the program because they meet the minimum requirements and remembered how to do a basic kinematics problem.

Several years ago I was able to sit down with an NR screener who had been doing this for years, he may have actually screened your academic transcripts. He said when the interviews happen they are not necessarily looking for the right answers which is always great, but they are looking at the problem solving process. The process isn't supposed to be hard but an opportunity for the person to demonstrate their potential.

I know. I was referring to their demeanor. Ignored any greetings / small talk and had body language like they'd rather be getting a root canal than listen to another candidate work through what they believe is a kindergarten level problem.

 

[BigRed389]

I think we are in violent agreement. The Navy needs all kinds, but I think the current policy is unnecessarily excluding liberal arts types with no data to back it up. I wouldn’t necessarily oppose a min STEM major requirement, but 85% seems a bit excessive. On the anecdote side, my NROTC commissioning cohort was 14 people when we operated on the major in what you want plan. We had 1 nursing major, 5 liberal arts majors, and 8 engineering majors. 17 years later we have only 3 left on active duty, 1 liberal arts major and 2 engineers, so roughly an equivalent rate of making O5. The one engineer who went the nuke engineer specific path so yes her major mattered, but the other is a DDG skipper, and the liberal arts type is an O5 NFO. Fun fact all remaining are women. In the nuke engineers case obviously her major mattered, but when you look at the numbers of 1440s we have compared to the numbers of URLs, betting on a STEM degree to make URL leaders, which is the goal of NROTC, might not be a great bet. Again, I say this acknowledging I have no data to support, but I don’t believe the Navy has the data to support either.

Spot on.

The only real hard requirement I can think of for a STEM degree is to go into a postgrad STEM program, and other than for the very specialized (and correspondingly small) EDO and AEDO communities or stuff like Test Pilots I can’t think of any need for that in the Navy.

As pointed out, anybody going for a commission does all the extra calculus based STEM requirements in addition to any lib arts major degree requirements. Success in academics of training IMO seemed to correlate more to general academic aptitude than major…and I’d have bet class test scores would have mapped reasonably well to things like SAT or other standardized test distributions.

If there is a sense that lib arts majors aren’t sufficiently prepared to pick up technical fundamentals about Navy equipment or the operating environment, IMO we would get more value out of more general leveling training or education than loading up on more STEM majors.

Even as a card carrying STEM engineering designator nerd who does systems engineering as a day job now, I think we rapidly hit the point of diminishing returns with formal STEM education. One of my gripes with NPS continuing education options was it poorly served its DOD & Navy alumni population as it was entirely oriented towards someone who would be looking to continue in academia or a design engineering career, rather than broadening conceptually oriented education.

 

[CommodoreMid]

My only experience with NPS is my current one in their great power competition distance learning certificate, which I’ve touted elsewhere on this board. They designed it a couple years ago based on a big Navy request to give people a grad level primer on history and Chinese/Russian politics outside of their formal curriculum. It’s been enjoyable so far, has academic rigor, and because it’s a totally voluntary certificate program on your own time I’d say everyone in it has been pretty motivated in our online classes. Highly recommend.

Granted, this is me as a liberal arts type talking about the one NPS liberal arts department and how it can help the fleet, so I can’t comment on other people’s experiences with their STEM disciplines.

 

[BigRed389]

My only experience with NPS is my current one in their great power competition distance learning certificate, which I’ve touted elsewhere on this board. They designed it a couple years ago based on a big Navy request to give people a grad level primer on history and Chinese/Russian politics outside of their formal curriculum. It’s been enjoyable so far, has academic rigor, and because it’s a totally voluntary certificate program on your own time I’d say everyone in it has been pretty motivated in our online classes. Highly recommend.

Granted, this is me as a liberal arts type talking about the one NPS liberal arts department and how it can help the fleet, so I can’t comment on other people’s experiences with their STEM disciplines.

Oh absolutely…and it also makes sense given Big Navy specifically requested it.

On the STEM side even the certificate courses were mostly a continuation of various post grad degrees. Want to learn about antennas and radar design? If you’re not already full up on physics and math necessary for EE at an early graduate student level, you’re straight up fucked. If it’s been several years and you forgot most of it? Maybe a little less fucked but probably still pretty fucked. Why don’t you relearn some MatLab or other industry standard design program you maybe touched for a class or two while you’re at it too.

I was catching up with my advisor (who got promoted to Department Chair) a few years ago and did hear they were working to address that problem. Which was more than a continuing education problem. There was a realization they hadn’t done as well in being relevant to educating Naval Officers. Spending 2 years to get a Masters in ME or EE is cool, but wasn’t always translating that well into actually leaving with an understanding of all principles relevant to the systems we operate.

 

[Spekkio]

Oh absolutely…and it also makes sense given Big Navy specifically requested it.

On the STEM side even the certificate courses were mostly a continuation of various post grad degrees. Want to learn about antennas and radar design? If you’re not already full up on physics and math necessary for EE at an early graduate student level, you’re straight up fucked. If it’s been several years and you forgot most of it? Maybe a little less fucked but probably still pretty fucked. Why don’t you relearn some MatLab or other industry standard design program you maybe touched for a class or two while you’re at it too.

I was catching up with my advisor (who got promoted to Department Chair) a few years ago and did hear they were working to address that problem. Which was more than a continuing education problem. There was a realization they hadn’t done as well in being relevant to educating Naval Officers. Spending 2 years to get a Masters in ME or EE is cool, but wasn’t always translating that well into actually leaving with an understanding of all principles relevant to the systems we operate.

A STEM education is antiquated 2-4 years after graduation if you don't use it regularly.