The Unofficial SMART Scholarship Forum

Guest wrote:I'm also wondering about life after the service commitment. Assuming I leave as soon as I can (~2 years), do you think it would be easier or harder to get a job at a private company (Boeing, Lockheed, etc)? On one hand you would have DoD experience and a security clearance, but you're also not really a new graduate, which I assume is the most heavily targeted recruitment demographic. Have you gotten to that stage yet?

I am a former participant and no longer work for the DoD. In order to get a job in the private sector, you need to be able to demonstrate skills and hopefully some experience. If you get placed in a do-nothing job, the experience part will be hard. Skills may be hard too - it will be on you to keep fresh and relevant - this is important. Private companies often do technical interviews for technical positions and they want to be able to see that you know how to use those skills.

"DoD experience" I think is only potentially helpful if you work for a defense contractor. The security clearance is a major plus, and being familiar with the acquisitions process would be helpful as well. There are plenty of companies that don't work with the DoD and where a security clearance, while novel, won't be helpful. It all depends on what you want to do.

The important thing is to do all you can to avoid the do-nothing positions (there are plenty). Make sure before you commit that you're going to like it. Don't get caught thinking "I only need to do this for 2 years." If you can get meaningful experience, build on your skills, then you'll have nothing to worry about no matter where you career takes you.

As far as life after the commitment, you can stay at your SF or leave freely. Either way, SMART requires you to fill out a monitoring report each year so they can keep track of what you do post commitment for 10 years.

As far as getting a job at a big name company in the private sector, post commitment, in theory it should be helpful. They do market mostly to new graduates, true, however there are plenty of positions online desiring a couple years worth of work experience -- you'll start out higher than a new graduate anyway due to the experience -- I know from experience Raytheon is hiring quite heavily right now and is aggressively looking for engineers. If your DoD work is not really aligned with what jobs you may be going for at a private company, or if your job is not very "productive," that is where it will hurt your chances. A fair number of scholars on this forum mention that they are essentially warm bodies and don't feel like they are doing anything meaningful. This is very dependent on what you make of your position or even what your supervisor or SF has you do. Worst case, you CAN move around once you start your commitment of you feel you aren't being utilized, but I don't know how hard that is -- I have heard of a number of Palace Acquires doing this and they are treated in a similar manner to SMART scholars.

Thanks, both of you, for giving an honest impression of SMART. I really hope that if and when I get an offer, I think carefully about the position instead of getting wide-eyed at the money they're throwing at me.

I'm also wondering about life after the service commitment. Assuming I leave as soon as I can (~2 years), do you think it would be easier or harder to get a job at a private company (Boeing, Lockheed, etc)? On one hand you would have DoD experience and a security clearance, but you're also not really a new graduate, which I assume is the most heavily targeted recruitment demographic. Have you gotten to that stage yet?

I agree with what Guest01 is saying. I was initially at a test facility as my SF, but after interning there and asking my supervisors what work I would actually do when I come on full time, I got a different story than in the interview process. The work I was set to do when I came back didn't even require my graduate degree. I was picked up for design and my aerodynamic/fluid mechanic background, however most of that experience would be unused in their planned position for me, and literally zero of my design experience would be used. Most of the actual engineering work and any form of design work (or even engineering programming) was done by the contractors on base -- civilians weren't even allowed to do meaningful programming that would add to the current engineering toolboxes available, due to the fact that they relied on the contractors for this. The civilians and military members supervised tests, did odd jobs to get a paper published in AIAA, and sat in meetings discussing the future tests.

At least now SMART requires scholars to do site visits before accepting the contract with the SF/SMART. I wish that was a thing when I applied for SMART, so take advantage of it to learn exactly what they do and what they have planned for you. You may also want to ask if the SF has actually participated in SMART before, and more specifically the group you would go to. My sponsoring group knew literally nothing about SMART, so it caused issues down the line.

Fortunately, I was able to move facilities to one that has a tiny group doing design work (in AFRL), but the jury is still out as it is a newly forming group/capability and not all members have been identified or started working yet. I would NOT recommend relying on this mechanism in SMART as they are very against allowing scholars to move despite their poor matching process.

An answer to your hindsight question: no, knowing what I know now, I wish I hadn't taken SMART. I had an offer with no strings attached from my research lab on campus at the same time, but took SMART due to the paired job at the end. Even if I didn't have a funded position offered, I still wish I would not have taken SMART as I have debated paying SMART back many times to just leave the program. FYI: SMART is around a decade old and still does not have a means for scholars who left the program to begin repayments.

TL;DR: if you apply, take full advantage of the site visit before accepting and try to squeeze out all of the information from your SF and future supervisors. You don't want to regret accepting SMART and locking up X years of your life in a job you don't enjoy or that doesn't line up with your career goals. As a word of caution, there are facilities that may make the work sounds exactly like what you're wanting, but you may find out that once you are locked in, the story changes. This is very rare, but still possible. If you do want to stay in the realm of technical work/research, go for AFRL. If your matched SF after SMART's application process is not AFRL (or even if it is for that matter), think long and hard before accepting to make sure it lines up with your career goals.

I'm not sure I agree with the statement that R&D facilities require a master's up for design work. There is nothing that precludes you from design work with a BSAE degree. With that said, I think it will be very, very challenging to find a design related position in the AF / SMART. There simply are not a lot of design related positions in the AF. The services are mostly geared towards buying components to keep their fleet running. New stuff is largely handed off to contractors.

I first joined SMART expecting to be technical and to do design work, and was told by my SF HR that this was exactly the type of work I would be doing. The closest thing I got to designing anything was "designing" a power point slide to explain to contractors what we wanted to have done. It was heart breaking and frustrating at the same time. Before I get a smart remark from anyone, I have a graduate degree.

The government, and especially the AF is really set up for acquisitions. They have entire contracting / finance / "engineering" groups set up for this that employ thousands of people.

If you read back on this forum, the chief complaint among many scholars is that they were duped into an acquisitions do-nothing position. I think I'd agree with most of their assessment. If you're selected for SMART, I would have a very serious and frank conversation with HR - and hopefully your boss. Ask about job responsibilities. Ask about the engineering tools they use. Ask for a tour. And whatever you do, don't get wishful thinking that your experience will be different with SMART waving tens of thousands of dollars in your face. Trust me, being locked into a miserable job for years is not worth it. The clock ticks slowly and your brain hurts.

Anyway, back to your original question. AFRL I think is your best, perhaps only choice to be technical in the AF. The test centers sound cool, but my experience has been that contractors are mostly doing the technical work here.

I agree with you that the description that Pax River provides sounds interesting. I've been to this facility, but was not convinced the organizations I met were technical. My visit was not all-encompassing - I cannot say technical work does not exist for government engineers - I can only say I did not see it.

I think you're right- just doing tests and test analysis might not be the best route for me. Right now I think I am interested in something related to aerodynamics or flight mechanics, but it doesn't necessarily have to be a design-only role. I'm not as interested in doing avionics or manufacturing engineering.

I'm thinking about applying for a follow-up award for a masters if I end up liking the work, so that might be something that could get me more of a research/lab role. But yes, I'm strongly considering a career in research.

Have you heard anything about Pax River? Based on the description it seems they do everything from design to test, so that could be interesting.

Also, do you mind telling me what SF you went to? What kind of experience have you had? I guess what I'm getting at is would you do it again in hindsight.

It is extremely rare for SMART to be able to fill openings in R&D for aerospace engineers, especially BS AE's since most R&D facilities require a master's up, especially for design work. Your best bet for design in the air force is AFRL. AFTC, the 412th, and AEDC perform essentially zero design work. All they do is testing an analysis of the test results... From experience this is not quite as meaningful as they make it sound to be.

If you want to do design, try for AFRL or China Lake. AFRL will focus mainly on vehicles, while China Lake is looking at missile design capabilities, last I heard.

As far as challenging, meaningful work, it is totally dependent of what the SF has need for when you come aboard, as well as the potential growth of the position they put you in. The definition of this is also in the eye of the beholder. Based on your post, it definitely sounds like you want to be placed in a lab of some sort. This is hard to get as a BS student, but it can be possible.

If you don't mind, what discipline other than design are you interested in? Or is design your dream field/job?

As a past/current participant, I will let you know SMART assigns students almost like a lottery if multiple facilities are interested in you. Also, make sure you absolutely can't afford school without SMART. With a BSAE it shouldn't be hard to get selected for any of these positions post degree completion anyway if you get funded elsewhere. SMART just causes issues for many scholars. There are still a large number who experience no issues, however. It is totally dependent on the student and how well things are drawn down the line.

After browsing this forum I can see that a lot of people aren’t happy with the Phase II work at most SF locations, but surely there must be a few places where you actually get to do R&D and other challenging, meaningful work. This fall, I will be applying for 2 years of funding in Aeronautical/Astronautical Engineering (BS degree), and I’m mainly interested in aircraft design and test, though I’m still open to exploring new things. What locations offer the best experiences in my field?

For reference, some sites that seem interesting to me right now are below, in no particular order:
• 412th Test Wing – Edwards AFB, CA
• Air Force Flight Test Center – Edwards AFB, CA
• AFRL Aerospace Systems – Wright-Patterson AFB, OH
• Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division – NAS Pax River, MD
• Arnold Engineering Development Center – Arnold AFB, TN
• AFRL Directed Energy & Space Vehicles – Kirtland AFB, NM
• Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division – China Lake, CA
• Los Angeles Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center – Los Angeles AFB, CA