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+--- Thread: Ending Military career to start my life! (Help :D) (/Thread-Ending-Military-career-to-start-my-life-Help-D)
Ending Military chapter to start my life - Stefan Brannen - 12-20-2022
Hello All!
My name is Stefan. I am currently serving my 8th year active duty in the Navy. With just 18months left in my contract, I am finally ready to separate and chase my dream to become a Registered Dietician (RD). I have 43 credits accumulated from my Joint Service Transcript (JST) and a few credits I earned from four elective college courses I did through UMGC. I dont know the exact amount right now but I am still working on my associates.
My goal is to at least obtain my associates within these 18 final months in my military career. (Currently on sea duty right now so my schedule needs to be very flexible.)
I have read that beginning January 1st 2024, The minimum degree to become an RD is to have a Masters. I fully plan to use My Post 9/11 GI Bill but my only issue is, I for the life of me do not understand college, so I don't know the smartest way to go about any of this.
If anyone has any advice or tips I can follow Pre and Post DD 214 (Military Separation) I would greatly appreciate it!
Here are few more following concerns I have. Optional if anyone has any input.
Full time college while working a part time job?
Part time College, full time job?
Online schools or In person?
(dont laugh at this one) But how do I even apply for a school I want to go to? haha
Try to start working on my Bachelors after associates through TA while serving?
I will most likely throw more questions out there in the future. But I hope this gets the ball rolling.
Merry Christmas Everyone! Enjoy the Holidays!
Ending Military career to start my life! (Help :D) - Stefan Brannen - 12-20-2022
Hello All!
My name is Stefan. I am currently serving my 8th year active duty in the Navy. With just 18months left in my contract, I am finally ready to separate and chase my dream to become a Registered Dietician (RD). I have 43 credits accumulated from my Joint Service Transcript (JST) and a few credits I earned from four elective college courses I did through UMGC. I dont know the exact amount right now but I am still working on my associates.
My goal is to at least obtain my associates within these 18 final months in my military career. (Currently on sea duty right now so my schedule needs to be very flexible.) <-- And due to my sea duty, I have pumped the brakes on school. But I am wanting to start back up asap.
I have read that beginning January 1st 2024, The minimum degree to become an RD is to have a Masters. I fully plan to use My Post 9/11 GI Bill but my only issue is, I for the life of me do not understand college, so I don't know the smartest way to go about any of this.
If anyone has any advice or tips I can follow Pre and Post DD 214 (Military Separation) I would greatly appreciate it!
Here are few more following concerns I have. Optional if anyone has any input.
Full time college while working a part time job?
Part time College, full time job?
Online schools or In person?
(dont laugh at this one) But how do I even apply for a school I want to go to? haha
Try to start working on my Bachelors after associates through TA while serving?
I will most likely throw more questions out there in the future. But I hope this gets the ball rolling.
Merry Christmas Everyone! Enjoy the Holidays!
RE: Ending Military chapter to start my life - rachel83az - 12-20-2022
Do you know what kind of undergrad degree you want? I'm assuming you have no undergraduate (Bachelor's) degree, yes? UMPI and TESU are both solid choices as far as military personnel goes. With TESU, IMO, you would definitely want to apply now so that you get the active military rate. I think UMPI charges the same either way. UMPI has useful, but kind of "generic" degrees. TESU has more specialized degrees. For instance, you could get a Biology degree from TESU but you could not get one at UMPI.
How much time do you have on your GI Bill? IIRC, it depends on your service length? I'm not super familiar with that, but you might want to save (most of) your GI Bill for your Master's degree. Depending on how much you've got.
RE: Ending Military chapter to start my life - MNomadic - 12-20-2022
I noticed you posted a similar thread in 2 places so it would best if all the responses were consolidated in one place, but since people have already begun answering here, I'll throw in my 2¢.
1) You mentioned working on an associates, are you going to a specific college for that? How far along are on that?
2) definitely take advantage of military Tuition assistance while you're in if you can. Last I checked it covers $250/credit so a lot of military friendly schools lower their tuition to that price so you have little/no out of pocket costs. Save you GI Bill for after you separate so you can maximize it towards finishing your bachelor's and master's.
3) take advantage of free DSST and CLEP while you're in. You can potentially rack up a lot of free credits that way. Even if you don't feel you've studied enough for a specific test, just go for it and take your free shot while in.
4) Have you heard of the USNCC(navy community college)? Look into those options to see what could work for your situation.
https://www.usncc.edu/Academics/Degree-Programs/
5) reach out to your command's education office/rep(I forget the name). They should be able to help you navigate the different options within the Navy.
6) Start looking at potential schools that offer the grad degree you need and figure out what prerequisite courses you need. You may need to take graded science courses.
7) as for all your other questions... That's a lot... I'd have to write an entire book to answer them. Best bet is to take it one step at a time. Make a plan for maximizing your active duty benefits so you can separate with your associates (and possibly bachelor's if you plan well) already done.
8) for post 911 GI Bill, doing online college pays a lower housing stipend, so keep that in mind when you're deciding between in person and online programs.
9) if you have any more specific questions, I'd be happy to try and help.
RE: Ending Military career to start my life! (Help :D) - nomaduser - 12-20-2022
Here's a trick:
Get 60 college credits from CLEP, DSST exams
and get 30 college credits from a cheap community college
Transfer those 90 credits to any popular state university such as Penn State, ASU, etc.
Use your G.I. Bill! Finish the remaining 30 credits at the state university and graduate within 1 year!
So you can become a graduate of a popular state university within two and a half year and get a full time employment.
RE: Ending Military career to start my life! (Help :D) - rachel83az - 12-20-2022
I've merged your two threads together, so that all responses go to one place.
RE: Ending Military career to start my life! (Help :D) - dfrecore - 12-20-2022
My vote: do CLEP and DSST exams while they're free for you (as someone currently serving in the military). Finish up with a few months of Study.com, Sophia, Saylor - whatever you need. Enroll at UMPI to get your bachelor's degree. You might be able to do this before you even got out of the military. Pay cash for all of this.
Then, when you come out, enroll in a school for your master's, and use your GI bill to pay for that. Work FT or PT, depending (my kids both work FT, one goes to college FT, the other PT). I'm going to suggest FT school to get that done as quickly as possible so you can start on your career as soon as possible. If that means working PT, that's fine. But if you can work FT, that's always good too.
Forgot to mention; I would not spend another second working on your associates degree. It's a waste of time when you really need to get moving on your bachelor's degree.
RE: Ending Military career to start my life! (Help :D) - vetvso - 12-21-2022
I would also apply for any programs that allow you to go to school full-time before you ETS. This helped me very much (1 semester) , and you can also take some very useful CERTS within areas that do help for future employment for free. For example, my son who is also on active duty has been able to get several SANDS certs, and RedHat cert training and tests all for free.
The big one is the free CLEP and DSSTS if I had to do it all over again I would have taken almost every single test before I left instead of just cherry-picking the ones I did.
You also need to pull all medical records early because if you have ever been injured there are other school programs if you have any disability when you leave.