Duck Walk…
0430 the alarm clock goes off...
0431 my cell phone alarm goes off...
0440 the phone rings with a wake-up call...
0441 I roll out of bed to do my stretching...
It was a very early morning to say the least. But let's just skip to MEPS. I was told to get there no later than 0545, and I pulled into the parking lot at 0540. The bus that was taking all the other kids from the hotel hadn't arrived yet. It was freezing this morning. I wore gym shorts, sports pants, tennis shoes, t-shirt, and hoodie. And it turns out the doors to MEPS don't open till 0600, so I sat in the car.
Here's how the day went:
- MEPS Briefing
- Blood Pressure/Pulse
- Physical Briefing and Paper work
- Breathalyzer test
- Blood Sample
- Hearing Test
- Vision Test
- Medical History with Doctor
- Duck walk...
- Finger Prints
The people talking to us were very clear about keeping our papers to ourselves and that we need to just follow instructions exactly. After every station we'd go back up to the central desk, and they'd point each of us where to go next.
So in the duck walk time period, you all get down to your skimpies and sit there. You get your height and weight measured ...then wait... stand in a line kinda dancing around doing all these different movements with a few people watching (which includes the duck walk) ...and wait... then you go in for a 1 on 1 with one of the doctors for some.. err... special time.
After all is said and done I was at MEPS until a little after 11am, so just over 5 hours. Most of the time was spent waiting on things to happen. They served lunch at the end as well.
From everything I have read, most MEPS are pretty different, so this is only how the Columbus, Ohio MEPS worked out.
I emailed my recruiter and processor when I got home to see what was going on next.
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Night before MEPS
I'm in Columbus in my hotel room, night before meps. I got to the Holiday Inn, and the check-in desk directed me to a room that was converted for military use. In the room a guy was checking in people and giving instructions.
"Lights out at 2220, wake up calls have already been set for 0445. In your keys you will find two tickets, blue tickets are for dinner tonight, and red tickets for breakfast in the morning. You must be in your rooms tonight no later than 2200, so keep fraternizing under control. Do not do anything, drugs/alcohol in your rooms, and don't let it disrupt your testing in the morning."
Very quick and direct, I think he had said his little spiel a few times before. Luckily since I am an officer candidate, I got a room to myself. I got here around 8pm, and have been up here in my room watching episodes of 'The Office' on my laptop.
It'll be bedtime fairly soon, since wakeup call is in 7 hours already... yikes!
Phone Interview with an IW Officer
I just got a phone call from an LCDR Information Warfare Officer stationed in San Antonio who went through OCS with my recruiter. I have started to wonder how much information I should really be putting into this blog, so from now on I'm going to leave names out.
My recruiter gave the IW Officer my information yesterday along with sending me an email saying to have some questions ready. I jotted down six or so questions on a post it note, and stuck it in my wallet, because I didn't know when I would be getting a phone call. My phone rang this morning with an area code I didn't recognize, so I knew it was him. I stepped out of the office to talk to him for a little bit (Brrr it was cold out there, I hope my voice wasn’t shaking, hah).
I think the best way to do this post is for me to write my question I asked, and then give his general answer without specifics. At the end I'll summarize my opinions.
Can you tell me about Family/Home time?
There is a lot of time that you will be away. Out of 24 months I would say sometimes you are upwards of 12 months being away. Not necessarily all at the same time, but maybe two months home, then one month away. With seniority comes more say in what you do.
What sorts of places do you go?
Anywhere and everywhere from California, to Texas, to Hawaii, to Europe, and other places overseas. If you like to travel, it will be nice for you.
What sorts of things do you do, that you can tell me of? Are you heavily into IT work?
There is some IT work, but most of that is done by IW Technicians, who are the enlisted guys who get into IW. As an IW Officer you might be in charge of an IT project at some point, but you won't be sitting answering support calls.
What specific skills would be good going into IW?
Your resume looks great, I'm not sure there's much of anything that I would change. Maybe I would recommend getting some training in Cisco systems. Other than that I think you are right on track
Are there specific classes that I should be looking to take?
Again, your resume looks very solid, I would just stay on the same track you are on. Maybe look to see if any Cisco classes are offered
Are most IW Officers computer science guys, or really from a broad field?
Everyone is generally from a very broad field. It is easier to come into this community with a technical/'hard' degree, but they don't deny you for the sole reason of having a 'soft' degree.
Is an IW Officer something I am able to make into a career, or are some people 'forced' out when they get a little older?
You can definitely make a career as an IW Officer. I've been in for 17 years (6 of which were before OCS) and I am taking home $96,000 a year. That's not what I am making total, but what I am taking home. The money is great and the job is exciting. If you show good leadership and smarts, you can put in your 30 years and retire as possibly a Captain or even Admiral. If you are a good asset to the military, they will keep you.
I feel my weak spot is my cumulative gpa of 2.924, is there anything I can do to make that less noticeable?
That is actually not all that bad. If you are questioned about your classes, just tell them the truth; you are in a very tough degree and taking very tough classes. Your ASTB scores are very excellent and should be looked at more than your gpa. If you can retake classes you could do that, but I'm not sure it would really be worth the effort. This is also a question you might want to point more at your recruiter.
The LCDR then ended saying something along the lines of....
You have a very strong application, and you just have to weigh your options. If you want to be more of the person in charge, you have to be a civilian or in the military. The other option is to be a contractor. If you want to be more technical, but be told what to do, go to the contractor side of things. If you want to be the person in charge, going to the contractors while also delving into projects of your own, go the military route.
I then thanked the LCDR and told him I really appreciated him answering my questions.
The LCDR was very friendly and accommodating to all my questions. He went to college for a communications degree. He told me to go ahead and call him back if I ever have any questions.
Hopefully if you are looking into IW, this post might be a little bit of help and insight for you.
Another quarter done…
Another quarter has come and gone. After throwing together my degree completion plan for the Navy, I realize that I really don't have all too long left. Sure it is 2.5 years, but looking at the classes that are ahead of me, it should be a good time.While working with a few of my advisors I have found some classes that really perk my interest, like network security, artificial intelligence, data encryption, and all that geeky fun stuff.
My final grades are officially posted, and I am very pleased:
| Technical Writing: | A- |
| Financial Accounting: | B |
| Men's Chorus: | A |
| Assembler: | A |
| Discrete Mathematics: | A |
This means I have a quarter GPA of 3.6, DEAN'S LIST!It's ashame I'm not already in the BDCP, if I get Dean's list for 2 or 3 (can't remember exactly) quarters in a row, I get a increase in the payscale. That would be nice. I am however resubmitting my transcript to my processor. The increased cum. gpa in addition to grades that are all nice and pretty should help my application.
So now that the quarter is over, I am working full time at Kroger until Friday, December 21st. After that I will be leaving Kroger to seek other opportunities. I ran into one of my favorite HR ladies who wanted to make sure she got my personal email address so we could stay in contact after I leave. That is one extremely positive thing about Kroger as a company: The people (Almost all the people) really are great! (one of the core values)
So next quarter I am hoping to get a job on campus as some form of IT guy. I'm not really sure yet, but I know there are opportunities. Then come Spring quarter I will start co-oping again, where you might ask? I have no idea yet.
Classes for Winter quarter (starting January 7, 2008) are as follows:
Topics in Literature (topic: monsters in fiction)
Marksmanship and Leadership (because seriously, how much fun will that be!)
UC Men's Chorus
Network System's Programming
Wireless and Mobile Networking
Introduction to Computer Organization (which I have heard is a beast)
Sounds like a hefty but fun quarter to me. It is a total of 15 credit hours.
It is rainy and nasty in Cincinnati, hope it is better where you are!
Post ASTB
I just got back from Columbus where I took the ASTB exam. I was surprised to find out that I was required to take all the sections of the ASTB, not just the OAR. So if before I have stated that IW only takes OAR, I was wrong.
My testing was scheduled for 11am in Columbus, two hours away. I also had to stop by home (Mason, which is on the way to Columbus from Cincinnati) to pick up two more letters of recommendation. I got an early start because of all the snow that fell last night, just to be safe.
I ended up getting into Columbus around 10:15am. I drove past the base to make sure I knew exactly where to go, then went to a Target across the street to use the facilities and browse. I actually ended up getting some Christmas shopping done! When 10:35ish rolled around I checked out and went over to the base. They had me pull around to the visitor station where all I had to do was show my driver's license to get a temporary parking pass to the base. Soon I was on my way to building 10, section 13.
Luckily I found a close parking spot and got inside, out of the cold. I met up with my processor, Jean, who took me back to her area and got me situated with the computer testing system. She was extremely friendly and very helpful. Even with the guards in the Visitor Station poking fun at me cause I was going Navy and not Marines, it was a very welcoming environment.
I had to leave my cell phone at her desk, but was able to bring my bottle of water into the testing room with me. There I was supplied with lots of scrap paper, a number of pencils with pencil sharpener, and the computer. The computer program was very straightforward and instructions were clear. If you are going to be taking the ASTB, I wouldn't worry at all about having a difficult time with the medium of the test.
I started with the Math. The problems were rather simple, only a few times did I really have to think twice about how to do something. But what I did quickly realize is that time is precious. They don't give you that much time to do these problems. Generally you have between 30 seconds and a minute for each question in each section. Of course you can speed through some and take your time on others. There was also a nice flag button that if I wanted to mark a question so I could remember to revisit it, I was able to do that. I didn't budget my time completely right, so I didn't get to look at the last two math problems all too closely. But I marked answers just as a guess. Can't hurt, eh?
Next was the reading section. This section was probably my most challenging. I had a difficult time reading quickly and then answering the questions. I would always read it quickly, read the answers, go back and skim the passage again. If I were to do this section again, I would suggest that you skim the paragraph for keywords, read the answers, then go back and read the paragraph. If you have a great memory though, you can probably just read and answer in that linear fashion.
Mechanics was a breeze. I had to scrounge the back of my brain for electricity related answers though. If you take this section, just review some freshman physics notes and you should be fine.
The other three sections were quite fun. Luckily I have had flying experience and I know a bit about aviation. I didn't look over any practice exams for these sections previously because I didn't realize I had to take them. One section is nautical/aviation knowledge, another is spatial recognition (which was my favorite), and the other was kind of a mix of everything done already. In the spatial recognition, they give you a picture from the cockpit view, then 5 other drawings of plane orientation. You select which plane matches the cockpit view. I would look at the cockpit view then imagine myself seeing that back in my Beechcraft Skipper. Although, I don't think that plane could have taken some of the dives the drawing showed.
After about 3 hours of testing with a 15 minute break between the first and last three sections, I was done. Being on the computer it automatically calculated my scores. I was a bit nervous as it took 20 seconds to calculate...
65 on the OAR
7's on the rest
I am very happy with the scores. The people I was working with at the base were very excited for my scores as well.
"You completely tore apart that test..." ~My recruiter
So what's next? Well my recruiter wants me to talk to a guy who an Information Warfare Officer right now, just to chat for a bit. I also have a few more transcripts I need sent in/SAT scores. And I'll have to go do my physical fitness test.
After taking the test, I had to watch a 20 minute video on OCS which was actually nice to see video. I think they show it so you can see that, yes, people will be yelling at you... it won't be a walk through the park.
Hmm... trying to think if there is anything else I want to add about the ASTB. I guess if you are in preparation for taking the ASTB, search and go through as many practice exams as you can. I found that the actual test questions were exactly like the practice exams I looked at.
Good luck!