Does anybody know anything about the SMART Scholarship?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Here’s a link.

I was looking around for scholarships and fellowships for grad school and came across that site. Basically, it is a Department of Defense program for science, technology, engineering and mathematics students (I’m an EE). It seems like the ROTC almost: the government pays for you to go to school (tuition, books, fees, everything – no cap) in addition to a fairly generous (for a student) yearly stipend of $25k-$41k, depending on location. In return all the student has to do is work at a paid internship with a DoD laboratory in the summer, and work for the DoD after graduation one year for every academic year supported in school. It is a little worrisome that I couldn’t find average salaries for DoD engineers on the site, but I’m assuming they’re not crappy, low-paying jobs.

For my particular situation, this seems like a good deal. I was in the Army for 5 years, and now I’m a college senior at 26, and I’ll be 27 in the fall when I graduate. I have a wife and a 2 year old son and an old house that always needs repairs; I had written off graduate school as pretty much hopeless. I have adult responsibilities – and while I have good grades (3.7 GPA) I have nothing extracurricular to wow competitive scholarship decision makers with. So I figured I would have to just get a job*.

*I realize that employers like extracurricular stuff too, and I plan on remedying the situation this year regardless of whether I end up going on to graduate school.

But college has been the best experience of my life; I’ve always told myself that if money was no issue I’d go to school until they kicked me out. I love learning. I’m riding out the tail end of a (mostly) free ride I earned in the Army. While I am slightly wary of getting into another Faustian bargain with Uncle Sam, I think it would be worth it to get a PhD and finally be a real Doctor, instead of a fake internet cubical one. And then I’d be well on my way to my dream job of College Professor, albeit fairly late in life.

So, does anyone have any experience with this program? (It has only been in place since 2005.)

Does anyone work as a scientist or engineer for the DoD? Can you tell me about it?

Anyone else want to share whatever thoughts you might have on the program?

I can’t even apply until August, so I’m trying to research all my options well ahead of time.

2

I don’t know much about the SMART scholarship, but I spent three years at the Air Force Research Laboratory in Ohio. It was a great experience and I learned a lot. The pay isn’t much and the bureaucracy can be overwhelming at times, but it’s real research. You’re not beholden to marketing, accounting, or the bottom line.

I think I may look into the SMART scholarship myself, though it looks like we’re late for the 2009 application…

3

For others, I believe it’s called G-LEAF. Wonderful thing. You give consent that you’ll work for them for a certain amount of time, and they pay for your master’s, preferrably an MBA or MSM. In this economy, why wouldn’t you take back your tax money and do it?

Plus, the gov’t wants and needs engineers, from what I read. Most DoD employees can’t actually tell you they work for the DoD without violating some Operational Security guidelines. Let’s leave it as: govt engineers I know (and I know many) have never once said they wished they were in private industry.