The Unofficial SMART Scholarship Forum

While I'm not an expert, I can tell you for certain that your experience with your SF will not hurt your future endeavors. Certainly not as much as dropping out of the program and paying everything off yourself would, that's for sure.

I definitely understand your feelings, though. I think everyone that's been accepted into smart probably has doubts about their decision at one point or another. Personally, I often wonder if I'm doing the right thing, and that's natural. Every smart scholar is an intelligent person with a world of possibilities ahead of them. For my part, while I'm happy I got the scholarship, I also don't feel that I owe SMART anything beyond our arrangement. I appreciate the opportunity I've been given, but if I didn't get it from SMART, I would have found something else.

Personally, I will have received my stipend for more than 2 years by the time I go to work for my SF. In that time, I'll receive on the order of $50,000, plus tuition, health insurance, etc. While it's true that I probably won't make what I could in the private sector in my first two years on the workforce, the other compensation that I have received more than makes up for that, and I'm not even one of the scholars receiving 170k+.

I don't think you have to worry about your experience with SMART hurting your future. In fact, I know it will give you an edge. Nobody's going to look at the fact that you received a highly competitive scholarship as a black mark on your record, so you can stop worrying about that right now. However, it is in your best interest to continue learning while you're working for your SF, especially if you are one of those who winds up doing a whole lot of nothing during your employment. If you're worried that's going to be the case, talk to your mentors about it. Personally, I trust my mentors and I know that they want me to have a meaningful experience while I'm working at my SF.

Bottom line: I hope you really take your time to consider your options. As someone who has accumulated a lot of student debt, I can tell you that it's not that easy to pay off, even if you are making a lot of money at a private sector job. Whatever you decide, make sure you really do the math so you can live with your decision.

Well put, smart_hopeful.

Jobs in private industry frequently suck - bad bosses, lazy co-workers, lack of job security, you name it. Jobs in academia frequently suck - no funding, postdoc treadmills, constant panic over grants, administrate nightmares, you name it. Jobs in government frequently suck, etc.

I don't mean to be flippant, but before saddling yourself with $170k(!) in debt, be very sure that the grass is in fact greener before jumping the fence at such staggering cost. Keep in mind that the single most valuable thing on a resume is experience, and work in a government lab - even a boring one that you don't like - puts you ahead of just about everyone with equivalent education but no experience when it comes to applying for more interesting jobs down the line.

Having SMART fellowship and work experience in a government lab on a resume, I couldn't image it would hurt you. Even if you did Nothing you can still put a good spin on it, saying I helped the country, etc. I don't think you really have a choice here, unless you want to be in $170k debt. If MBA is your goal, think of how much MBA costs, you can't afford to be in that much debt.
The only challenges now for you is to think of how to endure 3 years of commitment in your SF, if you hate it so much. I would suggest 1, change your attitude about your commitment, think of the pros, make the process less of a torture. 2, Even if you do not get assigned anything to do, try to be proactive and learn stuff on your own to prepare yourself better for when you get out.

I feel that my internship opportunities were ruined, I could have applied to other places. Of course this is the opportunity cost but the experience I gained while working at the DoD has not really been beneficial.

I know the commitment part sucks, but is't college the good part of the SMART program?The part where you just get paid? How was your college experience ruined by it? I'm just curious too.

I am not sure if you have had an experience with your SF yet but it is terrible. You don't get a computer for AT LEAST 2 weeks, they are never prepared for you, and then there is no meaningful work. It all seems like paper pushing rather than engineering or process improvement. There is so much red-tape to get through that often proposing anything just gets brushed away. Finally, the people that you work with are the most unmotivated people I have seen. You ever wonder why things in government take so long? It is definitely due to employee work ethic. I want to have a meaningful impact and actually do something to put down as experience for an MBA. Just FYI, an MBA is not just about GMAT scores and GPA, work experience is also key. However, it seems that by the time I apply for an MBA which would be 2 years from now, I will not have gotten much work experience, but just twiddling my thumbs waiting for assignments.

"This program has officially ruined my college experience, and I am not even sure how hard it will be after this experience to get a job."

Those are pretty strong words. I'm just wondering why you think that working at your SF will cause significant harm to your future prospects either at a private company or going to school for an MBA. It is one thing to think that it won't move you "significantly" forward in your goal, but you seem to believe that it will cause active harm. I'm just curious as to your reasoning.


(Full disclosure: 2011 Scholar, 3-4 years commitment post graduation)

Hello everyone, I am starting this summer working full-time with my SF. I am thinking about applying for other jobs and possibly withdrawing from the program, I have a 3 year commitment but I was wondering if anyone else had experience withdrawing from the program and what kind of pay back schedule they were looking at. Someone else mentioned the loans being a unsubsided stafford or stafford loans which have interest rates up to 6.8%, I was wondering this was still the case? An interest rate that high would be very hard to pay off especially for more than $170k of debt.

This program has officially ruined my college experience, and I am not even sure how hard it will be after this experience to get a job. Chris Moulder, who had posted here before got a job at GE but he worked at Edwards AFB which is very well known and respected. For those people working at "lower" SF's, I am not sure how hard it will be to find a job after our service commitment is over. I also have ambitions of getting an MBA, and I am not sure if I would be accepted into a good (top 10) program if I were to continue with my SF. If anyone has thoughts, that would be much appreciated.