Questions regarding Army ROTC

Specialties Government

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A little about me:

-I am currently a 4th semester BSN student

-I am interested in Army ROTC

-I am currently taking an Army PT class to "see how I like it"

-If I do, I plan on going to LTC this summer and doing ROTC for the rest of my time in school (4 more semesters after this current one)

As for my questions:

-If I complete ROTC and graduate with my BSN, am I guaranteed to work as a nurse in the Army, or can they force me into another field? I have absolutely zero interest in doing anything but nursing because I have changed my major and it is going to ultimately take ~7 years for me to graduate. Is there a way to guarantee this in my contract with the Army? (Side note: I understand that I am not guaranteed a commission, but I'm asking if there is any way they can switch my career, not what my chances are of getting a commission!)

-Does anyone have experience with the ARMY ROTC and nursing combination? I want to hear from anyone who has gone down this path and what your experience has been like. Any information would be appreciated

-I have talked to people I know from the military about nursing, and one guy said that some of his military nursing friends complain that civilian nurses who they work with sometimes have a lack of respect for them. He didn't really provide an explanation and I was kind of shocked because I would expect just the opposite (usually military garners more respect).

Thanks for the help everyone!

Thanks for the encouragement! I've really enjoyed the atmosphere of ROTC so far and I am going to continue with the class and PT this semester before I decide for sure. I love the order of everything and I feel like it will give me so much leadership training that I will be a much better nurse because of it.

As far as being too busy, I've completed all my other credits other than nursing so the most credits I will have for nursing will be 13 per semester after this current semester. Also, I earned a 4.0 last semester while taking 17 credits so I am confident that I can succeed in this regard.

I'm still trying to learn the basic commands and other things like that so if anyone has a good resource I would really appreciate it!

You can't post links on this site but google the words army ......study......guide lol. That should help you out with basic commands and drill/ceremony.

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Specializes in Tele/Med Surg/Psych.

"Don't let the person above me discourage you, everyone is different when it comes to time management and stressors. Hundreds of nurses come through Army ROTC every year and do just fine"

Anyway....some programs are harder than other to work with. My ROTC program does not bend for nursing students. So if you get lucky with a program that is willing to work with you, then all power to you.

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"Don't let the person above me discourage you, everyone is different when it comes to time management and stressors. Hundreds of nurses come through Army ROTC every year and do just fine"

Anyway....some programs are harder than other to work with. My ROTC program does not bend for nursing students. So if you get lucky with a program that is willing to work with you, then all power to you.

That means you didn't speak up or utilize your brigade nurse counselor correctly. It is required by Cadet Command that nurses get some special allowances of time for lab, clinical etc. Most ROTC instructors are combat guys and have little experience in nursing. You have to come at it from a logical angle to these guys and state your case if they don't understand. They aren't dumb, they want to make their nursing mission and having nurses fail nursing they had to show up to land nav lab is stupid. ALL programs get the same directions from cadet command and every ROTC nurse I have met had instructors working with them to make special allotments...hmmmmm

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Specializes in Tele/Med Surg/Psych.

It took the brigade nurse the whole semester to meet with us since we just got a new one. I had to go to FTX and all labs, I only missed one the whole semester, even land nav I attended. My instructor was an active duty infantry guy who just got off of 10 years of service. He never tried to work with me and no one offered to work around my clinicals and there were days I had to stay later and it cut into labs so they were always fighting with me about it. Just too frustrating for me with the lack of respect and willing to work with me and the few other nursing students. Believe me they wanted out too but too bad they are

contracted. I'm meeting with some cadre this week to talk about improving it for future cadets.

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It took the brigade nurse the whole semester to meet with us since we just got a new one. I had to go to FTX and all labs, I only missed one the whole semester, even land nav I attended. My instructor was an active duty infantry guy who just got off of 10 years of service. He never tried to work with me and no one offered to work around my clinicals and there were days I had to stay later and it cut into labs so they were always fighting with me about it. Just too frustrating for me with the lack of respect and willing to work with me and the few other nursing students. Believe me they wanted out too but too bad they are

contracted. I'm meeting with some cadre this week to talk about improving it for future cadets.

Most ROTC instructors are infantry or some other combat arms branch. Sounds like you had a bad apple. But for 99% of situations nursing and ROTC are cake together. A lot of instructors just want to see you care about ROTC, they have burned many a time before by nurses who just want to be nurses and don't get the officer part (complaining about Army "stuff", asking to leave FTXs early because of a big test, or in general just being bad and losing respect from peers etc.) That's why a stigma exists.

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Didn't quote it, whoops

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I was just reading through my old posts and wanted to thank you for encouraging me to really consider going through with ROTC and nursing when I originally posted this. I'm graduating and commissioning this May and I'll be an active duty nurse! Dreams do come true.

Don't let the person above me discourage you, everyone is different when it comes to time management and stressors. Hundreds of nurses come through Army ROTC every year and do just fine.

I thought both were totally doable and I ended up getting ranked pretty high on the Order of Merit list (even with all those "hooah" combat arms guys). Most ROTC instructors get your time constraints and make plenty of allotments for clinicals or class make up if you sit down and talk with them early. If not then that's when you bring in your brigade nurse counselor to help. This isn't their first dance with nursing students.

I really enjoyed ROTC, was able to do a lot of fun things, learned a lot about officership and made some good friends along the way. Go for it!The Army loves education, if you have the desire and time commitment you can do whatever you want (CRNA, NP, FST etc). It's also very political, a bad eval from a rater can ruin your career!

DC (Direct Commissions) are used when experienced nurses are needed or not enough nurses are coming through ROTC, you can't rely on it to always be there because it won't be.

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Specializes in EMS, ED, Trauma, CEN, CPEN, TCRN.

Congrats, nrryan! :)

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