Background: I'm a former Enlisted Airman who applied for and was accepted to the Air Force Academy under the LEAD Program in 2018. Now I'm a Senior (Firstie) at the Academy, going to commission in June of 2023. I got my ring a month ago, and things have never looked so good. When I was applying, there were very few resources for how the process worked and what life was like at the Academy for Prior Enlisted, so I've been making irregular posts throughout my five years here to fill that niche. I continue to post these to try and be a resource to anyone who’s thinking about applying. So If you're looking at trying it or just interested in a look behind the curtain at the Air Force's most notorious institution, go ahead and read on.

Junior Year: Junior, or 2-Deg year, is when you start flying the plane, even if you're only in the co-pilot seat. 2-Degs can start having some real responsibility within the Cadet Wing, from their Squadron all the way up to the Wing level. Juniors are the NCOIC’s. They're usually in charge of execution of their programs even if they're not directing them. Also, there are no more freedoms to gain after becoming a Junior. Of course, the only one that really matters is being allowed to own and operate a vehicle. If you’re not familiar with the way the Academy does things; yes, for the last two years I in my mid 20’s was not allowed to own a car. But now I do and life’s good again.

Training: This last semester I was a Training NCOIC. Training at the Academy is unique/notorious amongst Academy jobs in that the Squadron's Training staff is directly in charge of their freshmen. Have you heard a horror story about the Academy and the hazing that goes on? There was probably a Training staff behind that story. In the past, pretty much no one cared what a Training staff did to the freshmen so long as no one got hurt, and even then there was a pretty large gap between what was ambiguously okay and what wasn't. Things have changed with the times though, and now there's pretty well defined left and right bounds to what a Training staff can do. That said, the Commandant who set those bounds is a Grad and a fighter pilot, so Training can still get pretty intense. It's easy to see how some of the god complexes that come out of here develop. People are subject to your whims, and if you’re having a bad day you can certainly make thirty other people have a bad day. I think it’s good having a Prior on Training staff though, I found that I was typically the one who asked “why are we doing this?” during training meetings. If nothing else, it forced others to dial in what they were trying to do, and on occasion I could shut down ideas outright because they were pointless.

Junior Year Academics: oh my God. Now I'm doing a hard major, and in any undergrad program Junior year is typically considered the roughest year you can have academically. I probably had the hardest four months of my life. I regularly had to put in 16 hour days to meet the requirements of my academics and my job. I mentioned in other posts never feeling like I was fully caught up with everything. This last semester, I distinctly remember there were only two times I wasn’t drowning. It got to the point I was simply trying to manage late penalties for assignments to the best of my ability. Again, unique set of circumstances and a hard major so this is certainly not to be expected by anyone going this route.

Let me talk about academics in general. There's two avenues you can take at the Academy. There's the Techy Majors, which is any STEM major. The engineering and hard sciences fall under this category. Physics, Chemistry, Aero Engineering, Astro Engineering, among others. Then there's the Fuzzy Majors, which are pretty much a catchall for every other major. Economics, Management, Geospatial Sciences, English, the usuals. Choosing Techy or Fuzzy will slightly change your core classes. Techy's generally have to take Calc 3, and a significantly more difficult Statistics class. The difficulty obviously comes in when you get to Major’s classes. With Fuzzy, if you can survive the more difficult Core classes, your life will not be harder for the major you are a part of. With Techy… buckle up. Come Junior year you’re going to be missing easy stuff like Calc 3.

There aren't a lot of benefits to doing Techy over Fuzzy if you don't care about what degree you get (and if you only want to be a pilot, degree type doesn’t matter). Sure, an engineering student will open up more doors for themselves during and after the Academy, but their class rank gets absolutely no benefit if they were taking the hardest classes at the Academy and a Fuzzy major took two art classes this semester to fill their schedule. Probably the only tangible benefit is that you’re a lot more competitive for a grad school slot straight out of the Academy. This is why a lot of people who come to the Academy will simply choose Management as a major, because it is objectively easier and they will still be able to be pilots regardless of what their diploma says.

Why would I do the Academy???: Usually when I do one of these posts, there will be comments and questions that boil down to the same issue: "If I want to commission, why would I do the Air Force Academy over a traditional E to O commissioning source like OTS or ROTC?", so I want to spend more time in this post covering those things. Benefits of the Academy are not just the ring and the hazing, and there are real reasons one might consider USAFA over another source. I’ve never once tried to talk someone into or out of the Academy. It’s a hard road to travel and it may not be the right one. But that said, there absolutely are reasons one might consider taking it over a traditional source. These aren’t prior-enlisted specific, these are things that anyone going to the Academy might benefit from.

Network: People who have already graduated tell me “oh, it sucks now, but you’re set for life after you get out”. Long term, this is probably the best reason to the Air Force Academy over another source. The “ring knocker club” is real and it gets you things. I was working for a program recently, and somehow the person in charge figured out I was at the Academy. He immediately dropped what he was doing and took me around to shake hands with all the other grads at the event. I got to hear their class years, what things were like “back when it was hard”, and how “it’s always good to see another grad”. Then I usually got a business card and a request to follow up if I needed anything. The circle of graduates has people in opportune locations, and being another graduate automatically gives you inroads with them. It’s derided by the rest of the Air Force (probably fairly), but it’s one of the greatest benefits you get for having gone the hard path.

The usual stuff: If you have no college credit, this is probably one of your fastest rides to a commission. The LEAD application cares less about your academic prowess (although that still matters a little) and more about if it thinks you’ll be a benefit to the Academy as a cadet and the Air Force as an officer. Also, guaranteed commission. Stipend. Save your GI Bill. Nuff said.

Nearly any job you want: If you know what you want to do when you get here, and you take reasonable steps to go that route, you can absolutely get any AFSC you want when you commission. Pilot? As long as you're medically cleared, it could not be easier. Opting into programs will give you flight hours out your ass. AFSPECWAR? Oooh, look at you, overachiever! All of the resources to get you mentally and physically ready are here and accessible. Space? USAFA has three satellites in orbit and being part of the club that runs those counts towards your package for the Space Force. MX Officer? Uh, not my cup of tea but I promise you won’t have fierce competition for it. Now of course, this comes with the caveat that an admission to the Academy does not come with a guarantee of pilot wings, you still still have to put in a basic effort. That basic effort is minimal, but if you can’t manage that you will get kicked out.

Opportunities: I can’t speak for civilian colleges about what they offer, but I would be truly impressed if they came close to offering what USAFA has. You can: become a fully qualified glider instructor pilot, go on foreign area visits for weeks at a time at no cost to you. There are career broadening experiences before you even start your career. The free Airborne Wings. They’re fun, challenging, and designed to make you better. Personally I got a cool one, In the Fall of 2021, I packed my shit and spent a semester on exchange at the Naval Academy. The short is; the Academy has money, and it wants to spend it on you to do cool shit.

Chances to lead: If you don’t care about money and do care about the more esoteric aspects of officership, you might consider that at the Academy, you are going to be given many opportunities to lead and grow should you choose. In my time here, I’ve been in charge of everything from a Preparatory School Squadron to a Boy Scout expedition in New Mexico. I’ve gotten to try multiple approaches to multiple problems with multiple groups and learn what works for me and what doesn’t. The point is, the Academy will make it easy for you to try your hand at multiple different leadership roles in positions that appeal to you. You’ll be given mentors in Active Duty with similar responsibilities (Every rank up to a Brigadier General) who will do their best to lead you in the right direction. You might fail, but failing is learning, and as long as you’re learning you’ll be better when you get to Active Duty.

It's not that bad: If you exclusively read Reddit, you’d think getting a 2A AFSC is a tortuous death sentence. Now I’ve been a Maintainer and I know that’s not true. Sure stuff sucks probably more frequently and severely than in other jobs, but I have great memories, great friends as a result, and I don’t look negatively on my time as a Maintainer. But when I talked about it on Reddit, I usually needed to vent or blow off steam, or I just wanted to share a story about something incredulous that happened. As most of us do. Anyone should consider this when they think about the Academy. Yes, it sucks. But I don’t nor have I ever spent 24 hours a day seven days a week thinking about how much my life sucks and how I hate it here. My crazy stories are one-offs. Those are the ones that are fun to share, which are likely the same ones you’ve heard. Day to day, things are much less interesting. Barring some special events, I am pretty much a regular college student who wears a uniform from 0700 to 1645 and has some extra duties here and there. Aside from the awfulness that is freshman year (and it is awful), I can’t think of anything that seriously made me question my decision to come here.

Conclusion: Congratulations if you read this far. I don’t just see the light anymore, I can see the end of the tunnel and what’s past it. If you are an Airman under the age of 23 (22 for the Prep School), unmarried with no dependents, want to commission and up for the fucking fight of your life, you might consider trying for the Academy. Don’t DQ yourself, let the people who know what the Academy is looking for do that.