The Unofficial SMART Scholarship Forum

MysteryMan wrote:Also make sure you are ok with a GS 7/9/11 position. Getting a 12 is hard to do these days. Don't expect to be a 12 until the next person retires!

Working for the Corps is great. But that last part is not true at all. Check USAJobs, almost every day or every other day 12-14 positions open up all over the place for engineers, civil specifically. If you do well, it's relatively straight forward to get a 12/13 supervisory position. Just work up through the grades, perform well, and get to know LOTS of people in and outside of your district and division. RMC, IWR, HQ, ERDC, INDC, the TCX/MCX's...get to know everyone. It's all a political thing. (I'm a 13 FWIW)

I am one of 3 SMART scholars at the New Orleans District. We all enjoy our jobs alot with the Corps of Engineers. I'm taking it your a civil engineer? Alot of whether you will enjoy your job or find it challenging will depend entirely upon what division and section you end up in. If you are wanting design or construction experience make sure Engineering and Construction (E&C) Division. Specifically designers are going to be in the levee or structures sections.


To be honest most districts don't have a ton of design work going on. Most of what you see nowadays is operations and maintaience so if your slated for the wrong job doing levee inspections you will be a glorifieid paper pusher.


Alot of the Corps is what you make of it. I got lucky and scored a cool job working with drones. Also make sure you are ok with a GS 7/9/11 position. Getting a 12 is hard to do these days. Don't expect to be a 12 until the next person retires!

I just had my interview with them today. They seem like a pretty good SF! They let you work on real projects (although a lot of the work seems to be design with CAD programs? so not research, if that's what you're looking for). Also made Arkansas sound like a fabulous place to be. Good luck to you. Have you had your interview yet?

Was recently contacted about interviewing with them, just wanted to know if anyone here has worked with them and what their opinion is.