General Award Acceptance Considerations

[CivEng]

Hey everyone, I hope this is a good place to get some general consensus on considerations after being offered a SMART award. I am an environmental engineering student who was awarded a position as a civil engineer under the Department of the Navy. My award is for three years.

I would be incredibly grateful for any guidance on things like:
• Questions to ask my SF/SFPOC about my position
• Things I should ask/pay attention to at my site visit
• Any thought on upward mobility within the federal gov as a SMART/young person (specifically in civil/enve engineering)
• Your personal experiences with SMART
• Your experiences with phase 2 commitment

I have also heard of a SMART Discord. Would anyone happen to have an invite link?

Thanks y'all!

[Phase 2 scholar]

I'll share my thoughts, but hopefully others chime in as well.

• Questions to ask my SF/SFPOC about my position
and
• Things I should ask/pay attention to at my site visit
What kind of work would I be doing?
What kinds of credentials are important when when pursuing a government career here? (FE ect.)
Are there particular university classes or topics that are really useful in this line of work?
How does the pay scale work here? How are employees evaluated? Is it a GS scale (standard government pay scale), lab demo (offers facility more flexibility in how they handle employee pay), something else?
What does your facility look for when deciding promotions? What kinds of career tracks are available, and what do they look like?
How do I network within this organization? Is there a young professionals association?
Are there opportunities to move between different groups and try different work?
I'd take a look around the local area and make sure it's somewhere you are comfortable living.
You might also ask about how much technical work that employees get to do. (let me elaborate here a little on this question: some engineers get to do a lot more technical work than others when working for the DoD. A lot of SMART scholars have gotten understandably frustrated doing a lot of work that aligns more closely with a business degree on the acquisitions side of things)

• Any thought on upward mobility within the federal gov as a SMART/young person (specifically in civil/enve engineering)
Once you've finished your degree, understand the pay scale you are entering and be sure to attempt to negotiate your pay going in. That can potentially have long-term effects on your pay, not just the first year.
Different organizations within the DoD have different pay systems (but there's also no guarantee the one you see going into SMART won't have changed by the time you jump into Phase 2)
I don't have any specific information to offer you on AF, civil, or enve

• Your personal experiences with SMART
PhD in SMART is riskier than I realized when I signed up. Hard to predict how long it will take you to finish, and it's really stressful trying to finish in time so you aren't saddled with $100s of thousands in debt.

• Your experiences with phase 2 commitment
Been great so far