What are the options left as the recession sweeps the globe? People are being laid off, pay cuts, depression, inflation and so much more. The problems seem to be endless. Major MNCs and firms are crashing and filing for bankruptcy. Seems like the great depression is back. One can say it is one of the worst times to look for a job where there are none and make a career. But the American students seemed to have found a new profession.
Scores and scores of students seem to be applying for the armed formed. This kind of rise in application hasn’t been seen since 1988. Where 1100 to 1200 seats are available, student applications have gone beyond 11000. the rise in the number of applicants is startling. This was most notable at the Naval academy in Annapolis, MD, where the applicants were about 15000 or more.
These numbers have raised a lot of questions. Is it the recession that is making these students apply for the services? It could be as the armed forces and the naval forces supply complete tuition fees, living, boarding and food at the academies. Also the recruits are paid thousands of dollars as stipend money over the year. This guarantee job safety too.
There are other reasons of course to why an applicant would want to join the armed forces. They could be highly patriotic, want to follow their parent’s foot steps or family member’s footsteps etc. The naval academies had started to expand their recruiting in Urban areas like New York etc and it is already paying off. Along with many numbers of applicants from this area there are many minority applicants too.
The recession seems to have benefited the recruitments in military this year as well as the army which did not have many recruits for many years. This kind of applications which were reported was similar to the trend of applying to public college as their cost is low. One has seen a major rise in the number applications to colleges like The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; and the University of Virginia, Charlottesville etc. but it is reported that the number of applications for elite colleges like Harvard, Yale and Stanford too have not lessened.
It is surprising to see this as the American army and other forces have suffered the loss of many numbers of officers during the recent Afghanistan war and then the Iraqi wars. Even the applicants for Marine Corps have not lessened whereas they were the group to have the largest number of causalities.
We do not know how many of these applicants will be selected and those who do not make it, what will be their course of action. For now, it is becoming difficult to choose from so many students. On one hand it is good to see such enthusiasm but the military and other forces cannot possibly recruit everyone. So lets wait and watch.