Expert: Matt - 5/8/2009

Question
hello my name is mylan watkins and am currently enrolled at Florida Institute of Technology. im going to be a sophmore in college next semester and i am currently participating in army rotc but my school doesnt have NROTC. my question is is there a way i could do army rotc so they can pay for my college and then cross commission as a marine corps officer. another option i thought about was doing the marine corps reserve and get my degree and commission that way if possible. I have not contracted or accepted any money from the army yet. thank you for your time!!

Answer
Hey Mylan, good to hear from you. As far as your desire to be in army rotc and then switch after they pay for your school, it unfortunately doesnt work that way. If they army is paying for your school tuition, then they certainly are not going to want to lose out on their investment. As soon as you take money, you are obligated...therefore I would say that it is a good thing that you havent taken any money yet! So this pretty much leaves us with three options 1) stay in army rotc, take their money, and become an army officer 2) see if there are any surrounding schools that will allow you to participate in their NROTC programs (some schools will actually allow you to attend a different but still enroll in their NROTC...its kinda like a regional NROTC program) so you can definitely look into that. 3) The third option is the option that I did to become a marine officer. Its called the Officer Candidate School option (aka Platoon Leaders Class or PLC) and its a great program. You train during two summers in Quantico, VA and have no obligations during the school year...the tradeoff is that you do not get your school paid for. I could go into great detail about this program and how great it is, but your best bet is to contact an Officer Selection Officer (there are different recruiters for enlisted marines and marine officers). In order to get in touch with your local Officer Selection Officer and to set up and appt to talk to him, go to this website    http://marineofficer.com/   to find out more info...good luck and let me know if I can help!