The Unofficial SMART Scholarship Forum

guest wrote:The problem really isn't SMART, per se

Agreed. SMART's responsibility and authority is effectively zero once you get hired by your SF. At that point, it's all on your SF. But I served out my commitment and then some, and would have stayed longer if agency budgetary constraints didn't result in hilarious underpayment for new employees. Thus I'm now in the private sector. But it's still in a similar field for a DoD contractor, so in some sense the taxpayer at least got some of their money's worth.

The problem really isn't SMART, per se. They're even doing site visits now, which they didn't do when I came in. We were on our own to do research to figure out if it was right for us. The biggest issue is that people don't realize what they're getting into with most government facilities. 95% of the time, you're not gonna be doing R&D, which is what most people want out of it. You're gonna be either overseeing projects, or running testing. I got lucky in that my facility is a developmental test facility that also provides operating forces support, meaning field deployments to work alongside the operating forces to ensure their equipment is set up properly to accomplish their missions. This is highly unusual though.

I am very curious how many SMART scholars are actually retained after the commitment is completed or go back to the government after more school.

I know the purpose of the SMART program is to get AND KEEP good, new/young STEM talent in the DoD and associated facilities, however after my experience with SMART so far, if my commitment ever starts, I have zero plans to ever go back after my time is over. I know the forum likely hears more from those with issues, but even from other folks I personally know taking SMART, their experiences are not much better than mine. It really seems that SMART needs to figure out how to appropriately KEEP the talent they are recruiting.