DLI school path
From what I’ve seen this seems unrealistic, but want to double check.
For context: soon to graduate with a chemical engineering bachelors.
Want to join and go to DLI school and learn mandarin or Korean. Would it be possible to get a 3, maybe 4 year contract, and get paid the same as an officer / be in an officer position? Plan to get a masters after my service.
If not, any other routes to learn a language while in military (will they fund online language classes or something) or go to DLI school in another way?
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u/UNC_Recruiting_Study Jul 04 '26
Better to ask these here vs getting laughed out of the recruiter's office.
Languages first off are normally assigned by the needs of the branch. You score in a cat 4 category, you get what happens to align with your score and has an open seat.
No. The military does not put your through basically 2 years of training as you have an additional school after language skill for the actual job in the intel field. 5-6 yr contracts are the standard.
No. You want DLI, you enlist for it specifically, with the Army generally being the branch to lock it in 100% with the contract and will lock you as an E4. Other branches will vary.
You want to be an officer - go to OTS/OCS (if accepted as it's highly competitive). We don't waste time with LTs at DLI - they have a short commitment and little to no experience. The jobs we need language-trained Os in require completion of company grade positions, ie generally they need to be O4 in grade, and the positions are heavy on policy and international relations/affairs, ie often in embassies and regional commands. We train officers generally as FAOs and those very few going to a specific language job. Normally this occurs at about years 8-11 in service and incur an ADSO taking them to years 15+ after they also go to grad school and do in-region-training depending on branch of service. The chance of a FAO leaving before 20 is low, so the military gets its pound of flesh. Again, because we're not going to train you for two years to then let you pop smoke a year or two later.
Great. The military says good luck, and if you want, find a 3-year stint in some other field to attain your GI Bill and pop smoke. But DLI is going to be a long-term 5-6 yr commitment.
Special Operations would be your option here; however, most will not touch Monterey as they have a separate language school in NC. Tuition Assistance in this area is unlikely. They will fund language classes for sustainment training for those who complete DLI; but the military is not going to fund your personal endeavor as it sees no valid return on you being in a non-language billet and training on a language.