Courses & Training

Army ROTC is a college elective curriculum taken along with required college classes. It prepares students with the tools, training and experiences that will provide success in any competitive environment. Along with great leadership training, Army ROTC can pay for college tuition, too. Cadets have a normal college student experience like everyone elseon campus, but when they graduate, they are commissioned as Officer in the Army.

Students who complete the four-year program take classes once or twice a week as freshmen through seniors. Cadets who enter the program having missed sophomore or junior year are called “Lateral Entry Cadets.” They require the summer Basic Camp program to substitute for their first two years of military science classes. Basic Camp is a 37-day training event held at Ft. Knox, KY, designed to introduce cadets to the Army. Basic Camp also allows second-year (Military Science II or MS II) cadets to gain squad leader experience, which provides opportunities for some MS III (rising senior) cadets to fulfill roles as platoon-level leaders. Basic Camp consists of eight regiments, or nearly 3,000 cadets. The objective is for cadets to develop leadership skills and to train them on individual and junior leader tasks to develop and reinforce Warrior Ethos and our Army Values.

Basic Camp cadets graduate the course prepared to lead at the team (3-4 cadets) and squad (9-13 cadets) level. They continue taking classes twice a week during their junior and senior years. Sophomores considering the program as juniors should contact us to determine eligibility as early as possible in the second semester of their sophomore year. Military science courses maximize hands-on practical exercises, allowing students to achieve training objectives through classroom experiences. The department uses U.S. Army National Cadet Command curriculum as the basis for each military science and leadership course. Instructors are first and foremost, current or past military service members themselves—a fact that makes an ROTC education all the more relevant to the operational army.