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Work Sample 6 of Section 2

The two options that I chose were to visit a college and interview an individual in the career
field I hope to pursue. I attended San Diego State College for a full tour over the course of a day. As for
the interview, I interviewed a Staff Sergeant of the United States Marine Corps. This interviewed
detailed a plan for the route I plan to pursue in the USMC.

To start, I had to first look at what sort of scholarships are available for those who seek a career
in the military, as well as which colleges can support said scholarships. Since I want to go into the
Marines, that limited my options, as only some coastal colleges actually have Navy ROTC programs.
The reason I have to pursue a Navy ROTC is because the Marine Corp's funding all stems from the
United States Navy, so in effect I have to pursue a Navy ROTC program. Based on the difficulty of
applying for Universities, I decided to investigate and pursue San Diego State University. SDSU is a
state college that is located near to Camp Pendelton, making it the prime college for Navy and Marine
related programs. SDSU completed accepts NROTC scholarships, however, their acceptance methods
are slightly different. SDSU bases student acceptance entirely off numbers and nothing else. This
means that the only two things they care about are GPA and SATs scores. This can make it
exceptionally difficult to make it into the college, but I feel I have a reasonable chance.

The other half of making it into SDSU, as I mentioned, is the NROTC scholarship. Now, I
actually will be applying for two different scholarships, NROTC and PLC. PLC stands for Platoons
Leader Class and operates slightly different than the NROTC program. NROTC is a full-commitment,
no backing out, program where I would be required to spend every summer of college to go for training
for 4-8 weeks. Upon completion of college I would immediately go on active duty as a 2nd Lieutenant
and receive operational orders. With the PLC program, it is entirely up to me how long I want to stay

in, as the scholarship is the same, but it gives me an opportunity to make sure the USMC is what I
want. I would be official reserve while in college, only serving a few weeks a year, but then go through
OCS (Officer Candidate School) once finished with college. I don't have commitment issues, as I know
I want to serve regardless of what's thrown at me, but applying for both $180,000 scholarships gives
me a statistically better chance of receiving them. Theses scholarships are equally comptetive, and rely
on not just GPA & SATs, but also extra-curricular activities and who I am as a person. I personally feel
this gives me a better advantage, with my history of Boy Scouts and community contribution in and out
of church, and the likely-hood of me getting the scholarship is decent.

Regardless of what transpires, I hope to make my way into the MARSOC community.
MARSOC is the Marines Special Operations Command, founded in 2006, designed to take over special
operations from the Force Recon, as Force Recon is being shuffled out do to technological advances.
To begin to get anywhere close to MARSOC, I first have to qualify for recon school. Recon school is
essentially a training school for snipers and forward reconnaissance units. To qualify for Recon I have
to do exceptionally well in basic training in the areas of physical excellence, mental acuity, and
proficient marksmanship. If I pass the screening for Recon, I will have the opportunity to attend and
hopefully pass the course. Once I am certified Recon, I have to serve at least 4 years active duty before
I can be considered eligible for the MARSOC training. This involves another screening, even more
scrutinizing, before I can be allowed into MARSOC training in North Carolina. Ideally, I'd like to be
able to serve at least 8 years active duty as a MARSOC Raider.

Overall, the odds are against me, but I'd love to be given the opportunity to pursue the path
stated above. Even if I don't receive the scholarships, I will go in as private enlisted and grind my way
up the hard way to the Raider community. I have the determination to get to my goal in the end, no
matter the difficulty or time it takes me to get there.

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