What would you do? (Advice)

[Undecided2015]

Good Afternoon,

 

Before I pose my question and seek your responses here's some background information on me:

 

I am currently working as an Army Officer and am stationed in California. I have been in the Army for about 4 years now and have lived in Germany, Afghanistan, and now California. I have also briefly traveled to an additional 13 countries since I have been in (mostly hopping around the European continent). My obligation is up and I am seriously considering attending graduate school in the fall of 2015. I want to study IR and work for either the governement or maybe an NGO. I plan on applying to the following four schools:

 

Georgetown (SSP)

Tufts (Fletcher)

Princeton (WWS)

UT-Austin (LBJ)

 

My dilemma is that there is also an option within the Army to work in IR as what is called a Foreign Area Officer. In this program you learn a language, attend graduate school, and work in the region that is assigned to you. The catch with this is I wouldn't be eligible to apply for atleast another three years and I wouldn't get to choose my region so I could very well end up in Sub-Saharan Africa for the next 10 years. I make pretty good income right now in the Army and if I stay in and attempt to take this route I wouldn't have to worry about much but I could end up disappointed in three years and I will be back in the grad school shoot with three years wasted at the age of 29 instead of 26.

 

My question is what you do in this situation?

 

Also, just some stats:

 

3.82 GPA from a state school

Plan to take GRE in April

5 years of solid government work experience

2 years of Arabic study in college

 

Thanks for your time.

 

 

 

[nugget]

Have you considered applying, waiting to see what offers you get (including funding) and making your decision then? It's much harder to decide now because there are so many unknowns. With a few numbers and school names the choice might become a lot clearer for you.

[Rugger]

Did you do ROTC, Westpoint, or OCS? The route you took affects your Post 9/11 GI Bill eligibility. You don't start earning credit for it while paying back the government with your initial contract if you went to the academy or had a ROTC scholarship. Being 100% eligible is huge because that opens up yellow ribbon program matching funds from the school and VA.

But no one can answer this for you. The FAO program is great. Would they really let you go in 3 years? For some of the other services, it's a much longer commitment because of the school, language training, and actual tour in that field. If you want to stay in, there are also options as a senior captain/junior major to go and get a degree from some of these schools. But if you want to get out, then no need to kick the can down the road if you're unsure of the value of the FAO program.

Edited February 1, 2014 by Rugger

[Undecided2015]

Rugger,

 

I am 100% eligible for the Post 9/11. Since I was non-scholarship in ROTC I only had to do 3 years to get 100%. So fortunately I have that going for me. The commitment for the FAO program is quite extensive somewhere around 10 years. What I mean by 3 years is that I won't be eligible to apply for the program for at least another 3 years and it's not even for sure if I'd be accepted. 

[Doyle]

Undecided2015,

 

It seems to me that the Big Questions(™)  are ones that you don't address in your original post: 

 

1) Are you happy in the Army?

2) If you were to leave the Army, what do you want to do (other than go to school--what would you do with your degree)?

 

I retired last fall after 21 years as a Naval officer and am now in the first year of Public Policy PhD, with the goal of teaching.  I'm really loving it.  But I also know that I am enjoying my program more because of the perspectives I developed commanding ships and leading Sailors.  And I am very excited at the notion of teaching, since it offers much of the same satisfaction that I took from working with Sailors.  Without that experience and sense of purpose, I don't think I would be enjoying it nearly as much.

 

You've listed great public policy schools, and it sounds like you have good credentials to get into one.  But the question of whether to stay in the Army or get out is much bigger than just which schools you might go to.  Army FAO is a great program.  And it's very different than a public policy degree.  There are also options to do a public policy degree through the Army. But the real question is not: 'should I go to school or become a FAO?'  It sounds to me like it's: 'do the things that I value about serving in the Army outweigh the things that frustrate me, or would I be happier out of uniform?'  Once you have that question solved, it sounds like you've got the skills to be successful, whether in or out of the Army.

 

Good luck in your decision.

 

-Doyle

[terrapin]

Allow me to echo Doyle's points. Having served 5+ years as a Marine officer, I was faced with a similar question. There were numerous attractive options available to me had I decided to stay in (FAO, Congressional Fellowships, Masters Programs, etc,) but as we both know, a lot comes down to luck in the military and there are no guarantees whatsoever. So I had to make my decision to stay in or get out independent of these potential "gold mines". Ultimately I decided that I wasn't being challenged much anymore as a Marine, and at just 28 I had grown physically and mentally tired of the old games. Not to mention the fact that I am engaged to a wonderful and independent woman whose own career would surely suffer if I continued to move around every 3 years.

 

So, you have to decide based on the merits alone of staying in or getting out. If you still feel the calling to serve your country if called upon, you could enter the selected reserves (or whatever the Army equivalent is), as a nice middle ground.

 

For what it's worth, if you do well on your GRE, I think you'd be extremely competitive at any of those schools. You have plenty of time to take them, and it is a test that is easily mastered with some brute force studying.

[Gov2School]

Allow me to echo Doyle's points. Having served 5+ years as a Marine officer, I was faced with a similar question. There were numerous attractive options available to me had I decided to stay in (FAO, Congressional Fellowships, Masters Programs, etc,) but as we both know, a lot comes down to luck in the military and there are no guarantees whatsoever. So I had to make my decision to stay in or get out independent of these potential "gold mines". Ultimately I decided that I wasn't being challenged much anymore as a Marine, and at just 28 I had grown physically and mentally tired of the old games. Not to mention the fact that I am engaged to a wonderful and independent woman whose own career would surely suffer if I continued to move around every 3 years.

 

So, you have to decide based on the merits alone of staying in or getting out. If you still feel the calling to serve your country if called upon, you could enter the selected reserves (or whatever the Army equivalent is), as a nice middle ground.

 

For what it's worth, if you do well on your GRE, I think you'd be extremely competitive at any of those schools. You have plenty of time to take them, and it is a test that is easily mastered with some brute force studying.

 

I think this is great advice.  You might also want to see if you or your colleagues have contacts currently working as civilians in the government who you could talk to (especially people who have prior military service).  They may be able to give you a better idea of the kind of jobs you could realistically expect coming out of grad school/what paths are available to you from there.  That might help give you a better idea of whether or not you want to try the Army route. 

[Undecided2015]

Just logged back on. There's some good advice on here. I appreciate the feedback. I wish more people were on here that would post about the jobs they got after graduaion instead of just how to get to graduation. I know there is a jobs forums on here but it is pretty sparse.  I will most likely apply for fall 2015. Worse case I defer admission or decline.

[chocolatecheesecake]

Agreed on the great advice so far. The questions it sounds like you need to focus on are not so different from everyone else's, regardless of your background or situation. If you are thinking about graduate school, the most important thing is to know what you want to do with it. If you have a very vague idea what you want to do when you graduate, graduate school (at least the sort of professional masters degree you're looking for) may not be for you yet. Use the time between now and this fall to zero in on some of the things that you're interested in. IR is pretty vague, and government vs. NGO is a big question. Once you actually figure out a few things that you're really interested in, the right degree you need in order to work in that area will become clearer to you, as will the qualifications for your ideal program of study. It will also become clear whether you'll be able to learn that knowledge and get experience in those things if you stay in the Army or become an FAO.

 

I had the same questions myself about what kind of jobs were available, and for something like that, I just searched all the places I could find: a municipality website's personnel section, a university's job board, Monster.com, anything and everything I was and wasn't qualified for just to get a sense of what was out there in my area of interest. I found it was especially useful to look at the Staff pages of organizations I was interested in or whose work I admired, to see the career trajectories or former positions of people who work there now. And of course, I've been doing my networking and informational interviews by email and Skype and in person -- Doyle and terrapin are great examples of people you could have a long conversation or email chain with to discuss how they found what they're interested in doing and forged their own path after their service. Keep talking to people, and good luck!