So, to make a long story short, I don't really have the money to keep going to college as-is. My parents announced to me, a month before I headed off to college, that they don't have the money to help out in the slightest with payment, so I'm pretty deep in the hole with debt already. (Not that I'm ungrateful for what my parents have helped me with already—I couldn't afford insulin and other medical supplies without my dad's insurance.)
Most scholarships I can take are absolute jokes. They require an inordinate amount of work for anywhere between $500–$1,500; the disability scholarship at my uni only allows for students to get about $5,000 over their entire academic career. While free money is, indeed, free money, writing a five page essay on how my diabetes has helped me overcome adversity—only for the chance at getting $1,000—isn't really worth it.
But then there's the SMART scholarship offered by the DoD. It gives you full tuition, no matter how much it is, a $25,000 stipend, $1,200 worth of health insurance, and an allowance for books—the catch is that, if you get the scholarship, you're essentially a DoD employee. For every year you spend doing the scholarship, you have to work one year at a sponsoring DoD facility—where you work, and what you work on, is ultimately determined by the DoD; if you accept the program for more than one year, you have to do at least one internship at a sponsoring facility; failure to do all this will result in you having to pay every single penny back to the DoD. Permanent employment at a sponsoring facility is almost guaranteed.
From a career and finance perspective, it's a great deal: You get paid to go to college, get a job in the DoD which—aside from the bureaucracy—is pretty cushy, and pretty damn stable considering how much money they can throw around.
There's a major problem for me here though: from an ethical standpoint, I don't know if I can work in the military—especially if it pertains to weapon systems. Even the most peaceful research you could do in the SMART program—photovoltaics, nanoscience, etc.—could swiftly be put to some sort of tactical use. I don't know what the DoD would want me to work on, but it makes me feel genuinely ill what they could make me work on—nukes, missiles, experimental warcrime machines, and more. (The best bets for me in terms of not making warcrimes are currently the AFRL Kirkland space vehicles directorate, and the ARL DEVCOM sensors and electron devices lab.)
With all that in mind, I'm torn on what to do. If I want to put food on the table, I'll need to be pragmatic; if I want to not help contribute to a mounting list of new military atrocities, I don't know what the hell to do. And moreover, what if I work on something really cool and can't talk about it because of security clearances and all that jazz?
The only real justification I can think of is that my taxes go towards the military, so I might as well use them. (The problem is, of course, there's a difference between being forced to pay some money to them every year versus active participation.)
Sorry if I come across as whiny in this thread. I'm just really torn on what to do.
Most scholarships I can take are absolute jokes. They require an inordinate amount of work for anywhere between $500–$1,500; the disability scholarship at my uni only allows for students to get about $5,000 over their entire academic career. While free money is, indeed, free money, writing a five page essay on how my diabetes has helped me overcome adversity—only for the chance at getting $1,000—isn't really worth it.
But then there's the SMART scholarship offered by the DoD. It gives you full tuition, no matter how much it is, a $25,000 stipend, $1,200 worth of health insurance, and an allowance for books—the catch is that, if you get the scholarship, you're essentially a DoD employee. For every year you spend doing the scholarship, you have to work one year at a sponsoring DoD facility—where you work, and what you work on, is ultimately determined by the DoD; if you accept the program for more than one year, you have to do at least one internship at a sponsoring facility; failure to do all this will result in you having to pay every single penny back to the DoD. Permanent employment at a sponsoring facility is almost guaranteed.
From a career and finance perspective, it's a great deal: You get paid to go to college, get a job in the DoD which—aside from the bureaucracy—is pretty cushy, and pretty damn stable considering how much money they can throw around.
There's a major problem for me here though: from an ethical standpoint, I don't know if I can work in the military—especially if it pertains to weapon systems. Even the most peaceful research you could do in the SMART program—photovoltaics, nanoscience, etc.—could swiftly be put to some sort of tactical use. I don't know what the DoD would want me to work on, but it makes me feel genuinely ill what they could make me work on—nukes, missiles, experimental warcrime machines, and more. (The best bets for me in terms of not making warcrimes are currently the AFRL Kirkland space vehicles directorate, and the ARL DEVCOM sensors and electron devices lab.)
With all that in mind, I'm torn on what to do. If I want to put food on the table, I'll need to be pragmatic; if I want to not help contribute to a mounting list of new military atrocities, I don't know what the hell to do. And moreover, what if I work on something really cool and can't talk about it because of security clearances and all that jazz?
The only real justification I can think of is that my taxes go towards the military, so I might as well use them. (The problem is, of course, there's a difference between being forced to pay some money to them every year versus active participation.)
Sorry if I come across as whiny in this thread. I'm just really torn on what to do.