The Unofficial SMART Scholarship Forum

Does anyone have experiences to share re: trying to switch sponsoring facilities while still in school? Do your experiences involve changing branches of the DoD? My current SF is Navy, but my Ph.D. work happens to involve a lot of collaboration with an Army facility. So if I could transfer my SF to the Army facility, I could probably apply my internship work directly to my dissertation, then later work on exactly what I studied in school. Think there's any chance I could swing this?

Best of luck, I tried doing this and got an email from my contact's manager informing me that if I didn't like where I had been placed that they could inform me of how much money I owe them and I would be free to go wherever I wanted to go.

I'm not saying it's not impossible, but that was what my experience was. This was even after my first internship when I realized that my degree had no relation to what they would have me be doing. All SMART and the govt cares about are people to keep seats warm.

Huh, I'm sorry to hear that. It's strange, one of the employees I met at the Army facility actually was a SMART scholar several years ago and did what I'm talking about without much trouble (although I didn't ask him if he changed DoD branches or not, and I can understand how logistics could have gotten more complicated in the intervening years). Maybe (hopefully) it varies from facility to facility. Anyone else tried this?

guest2 wrote:Huh, I'm sorry to hear that. It's strange, one of the employees I met at the Army facility actually was a SMART scholar several years ago and did what I'm talking about without much trouble (although I didn't ask him if he changed DoD branches or not, and I can understand how logistics could have gotten more complicated in the intervening years). Maybe (hopefully) it varies from facility to facility. Anyone else tried this?

It really depends on your situation. I would say the guy you talked to is the exception to the rule. The majority of times, it will be extremely hard to switch facilities, irregardless of which branch you are coming from/going to.

That said, the one guy I know (Army) who switched facilities with relative ease had a situation that went like this:

1) A mentor at facility #1 selected him to come to facility #1.
2) The mentor changed jobs and moved to the DC area to advance his career.
3) The scholar showed up at facility #1 and was assigned a mentor who didn't select him.
4) The assigned mentor had no idea what to have the scholar work on, so he had him inventory IT computers and other VERY boring tasks.
5) The scholar mentioned to the assigned mentor that he felt he was being underutilized as a PhD student.
6) The assigned mentor agreed, but didn't know what else to do.
7) The scholar got in contact with his cohort administrator with SMART and let her know his concerns.
8) The SMART program contacted the assigned mentor at facility #1 and asked if the scholar was being appropriately used.
9) The assigned mentor agreed that the scholar wasn't being used correctly.
10) The SMART program contacted the scholar and mentioned he was free to seek other facilities within the Army and that they would help look for places for him.
11) The SMART Army liason proceeded to work on other projects, and made the scholar find his own place for work.
12) The scholar exercised personal contacts to find placement at another, more appropriate Army facility.
13) The SMART program agreed to the transfer.
14) The scholar transferred to facility #2.

Unfortunately, SMART continues to tell potential scholars that they will assist with items such as transfers and make it sound like it happens every once in a while.

If you have been selected by the Army, beware. The Army cohort administrator doesn't really assist you with much of anything, however. She is not effective in helping scholars navigate the Army bureaucracy and has no actual authority or pull herself.