Do you think I have a shot at becoming a Navy Hospital Corpsman?

[Bonnie77]

Right now I work as a civilian for the Navy. I manage an MWR (Morale, Welfare and Recreation) rec center. But I'm considering actually joining the Navy.

I know a lot of times you don't get to choose your job and the Navy does it for you. But I want to be a Hospital Corpsman. Unfortunately I have a Bachelor's Degree but it is unrelated to the medical field. I was thinking about going back to school to become a dental hygienist or a nurse anyways. I enjoy working for the military so I figured why not enlist and work for a Naval hospital?

I'll admit my reasons to go for a business degree weren't very honorable or Christian-like. I wanted to be in business like my dad and was motivated by money. Turns out I don't have the attitude or business sense to really conquer the business world. And i dislike being in an office all day. I truly enjoy helping others. I feel like I'm not using my talents and compassion to the fullest in my current field.

I have good business and admin skills. So I'm afraid the Navy would use me for that type of office work since I'm already trained and have work experience. If I wanted to be a Hospital Corpsman they'd have to train me from the beginning.

What do you think my odds would be of getting a Corpsman MOS? Unfortunately I am getting rather old. I'm 27 now. I recently started a new job and have to stay here at least 18 months otherwise I have to pay back my moving allowance. So I'd probably be 29 before I could enlist.

To be honest I don't think I'd qualify for Officer Candidate School either. I made a mistake in college. At one point I was a nationally ranked discus thrower. I tried anti anxiety meds to help me focus and calm down during important meets. I've never been depressed but tried the pills to help mellow out. Too much adrenaline can be a bad thing. I wouldn't have taken the pills if I knew it would mess up a potential military career. If I enlisted I'd want to do 20 years and then retire.

Thanks for your advice.

 

[bluemarkus]

29 isnt old if you have life spirit in you. there are women at 50 on the top of their game. what matters is do you have a vision and are willing to pursue and if it keeps nagging ya its what you gotta do. recruiting with law enforcement they love olde r ppl due to more life experience. guess armt navy etc always get fresh people but i dont know. age might not matter as much as you think.stop hangin onto the past talk to the folks and listen to their input. america will always have an army and soldiers will always need corpsman. plus youre around all the young hot guys and get to work out for free. delight yourself in the navy and she will give you thedesires of your heart.



greetings from a former soldier.

 

[E.C.]

Find a recruiter or command career counselor and speak with them. Ultimately, they are the "experts" in this one; just be sure that it is someone who knows what they're talking about.

When dealing with the recruiters, be persistent and stubborn about the job you want. There are those recruiters who care more for filling their quotas than actually putting someone in a job that they would be good for, but there are also those recruiters who say "screw the quotas" as well (mine was one such recruiter ).

Honestly, if they can take some kid freshly graduated from high school and turn him into a corpsman, than they can probably do the same for just about anybody.

If you go onto the public site for Naval Personnel Command and go to "Enlisted" it brings a drop down menu that would read "community managers". From their find the one for corpsman (I believe it would be something medical related) and go from there. Or if you go to cool.navy.mil and find Hospital Corpsman in the enlisted section's drop down menu there should be a pdf of an information card that would have some information on it. That card should list any restrictions such as age, medical things (like colorblindness) and some other extremely brief information.

But the best bet would be to speak with someone like the command's career counselor, or a recruiter.

 

[Autumnleaf]

You have a shot but you have to take the shot and give it your best. So go for it. Most people fail because they never try.

 

[Krissy Cakes]

Praying for you.

 

[Knee V]

The job you get will depend entirely on the classifiers (the ones in charge of assigning jobs) at MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station). How they determine what job you get depends on several factors: your ASVAB score (only a few sections on the ASVAB determine your score; other sections that don't contribute to your score will be taken into consideration when seeing what jobs you qualify for); the availability of jobs at the time you are at MEPS; your police record; your medical history; how many dependents you have; your citizenship status; and a handful of others. The recruiter has nothing to do with any of that. The recruiter's job is simply to determine if you meet the minimum qualifications for the Navy as a whole. After that, what job you get is completely out of his/her hands.

Other branches will tell you that they can give you a specific job right there in the recruiting station. That is true to a point. What they can do is put you into a job field in sort of a "layaway" status, so that as long as you meet all the official qualifications for that job and no other factors change, you can get that job. But them assigning you a job in the recruiting station is by no means a guarantee that you will actually have that job.

Any degrees or civilian certifications/experience that you have will have no bearing on what job you will be offered at MEPS.

 

[Knee V]

Additionally, if you have a degree the recruiter is required to see if you qualify for an officer program. However, the whole time that I was recruiting (I got out three years ago, Sept of 2011), people only had a chance if they had degrees in science/engineering or in advanced medical fields with a very high GPA. But that was three years ago, and things may have changed. I don't know anything about the specifics of your degree and college experience, but it's worth a shot.

But even if you don't qualify for an officer program, the fact that you have a degree will mean that you will start out with the paygrade of E3 if you enlist. (There are several different ways to start out as E2 or E3. Having college credit is just one of them.)