To start: Nagy, I think that the advice you‘ve been given here is good, and I think you‘ve made a pretty good call with sticking with school.
And Now:
I suppose that this post may be going off on a bit of a tangent from Nagy‘s original question, but here is my advice to young people who wish to join the reserves under the Direct Entry Officer or similar plans: don‘t.
In the course of several unit recruiting activities I have been involved with, I have met a fair number of individuals, usually high school or university students, who have turned up their noses at the thought of joining the CF as a NCM. To be honest with you, I myself had a similar attitude when I was in the process of joining. I consider myself to be a fairly intelligent person, I am university educated, and I figured, at the time, that if I was going to join the military, joining as an officer was the way to go. Needless to say, I did not do so: at the time that I joined, I had just completed my first year of university, and I did not meet the two years post secondary requirement for the RESO program. I was convinced by the unit recruiter that it wouldn‘t be a bad thing to join as a Pte, do my basic training, and apply to become an officer at some point down the line. To this day, I still haven‘t made that application, and I‘m glad I haven‘t.
I don‘t mean to offend anyone by saying this, but if you are young, with minimal real world job experience, and no military skills, you have ZERO to offer the CF as an officer. This holds true regardless of any natural intelligence, leadership potential, or strong character traits you posess. It holds true regardless of any civilian education that you posess. Getting a B.A. in English, or even a Masters in Electronics Engineering, does not qualify you to do the job of an officer. Certainly not well, at any rate. Experience is the key: either military experience(ideally) or experience in a civilian management/administrative role.
Within the regular force, many officer candidates are educated/trained at RMC. They are subject to an intensive four year training regimen, during which they are given extensive opportunity to absorb the CF‘s institutional culture, in addition to the regular university education they receive. During summer months, they are subject to tough military training. After four years of that, and having been issued their degree, they still have to complete more courses before being commissioned, and then they‘re only 2Lts.
My point in mentioning this is that despite this intensive training process, which many do not complete successfully, these new 2Lts are by no means to be considered great leaders. They lack experience, and, whether deservedly or undeservedly, get very little respect from most other soldiers (if you think otherwise, try asking a senior NCO what he thinks of these kids). And this is in the regular force! The reserves cannot offer the same lengthy training package that the regs can, and the young officers that we produce tend, for that reason, to be (generally speaking, I hope no one takes offence) just that much more... ineffective, shall we say.
I think that a lot of people get wrapped around the axle with regards to status. They have big ideas about how grandiose it will be if they‘re an officer. Well, it won‘t, and it particularly won‘t be for those who can‘t do their job well. To sum up, my advice-- not just to you Nagy, but to all other students out there who are thinking about becoming an officer in the reserves is this: join the ranks first. You can still apply to become an officer any time you want, and I guarantee that you will be a better officer for the critical additional experience that it will give you.
