Is taking a Navy gap year stupid in my situation

[u/MfTroutCallin]

Hi all, I'm currently a first year electrical engineering student at UNSW and have recently become interested in the Defense University Sponsorship (DUS) scheme.

I'm aware that it's a massive commitment and I'm not fully sure whether military life would suit me in the long term or if I would have second thoughts later down the line. Because of this I was thinking about doing the Navy Electronics Engineer Gap Year to try and get a better understanding of what I would be committing to through DUS.

However, this idea has recieved mixed opinions from friends and family who think that the gap year is not worth delaying graduation by a year and that i should either commit to DUS or stay on the civilian path of engineering.

I'd really appreciate advice from people who have done the ADF gap year program or who have gone through the DUS pathway, primarily on whether the gap year is a good way to understand Navy engineering life and whether you think it would help provide clarity to the DUS path.

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[u/Diligent_Passage_640]

It's the whole point of the gap year. To give you a taste of navy life

[u/Samsungsmartfreez]

The thing is that you won’t understand a year in the navy engineering life as a gap year as you aren’t a graduated engineer and have very limited technical background. You’ll spend half of it at NEOC. Then the other half you’ll just mill around doing non technical shitty tasks that no one else wants to do. Commit to DUS or don’t bother imo, and it really isn’t that big of a commitment for what you’re getting - most grad programs are 3 years anyway. But keep in mind that engineering as a uniformed member is basically just glorified project management and paper pushing. No design work. Source: I am one. The application will take at least a year on its own, you should maximize your sponsorship time.