🏀 KuBuckets Archive

My son will be attending KU as a freshmen next year. He'll be a fourth generation Jayhawk. He's accepted in the aerospace engineering program. He's been fascinated with planes -- especially military aircraft -- almost since he was able to hold a crayon. He's also looking at AF ROTC at KU.

If there are any engineering or ROTC alumni here who have tips or suggestions, please let me know! (No one else in the family are eng or ROTC alumni).

@bskeet No personal experience. But my roommate was an mechie from KU that has worked on the mars rover. - the only wildly fun experience I was brought in on (not the super fast elevator or flying in the wind tunnel while slightly inebriated lol) was the little (go kart size) formula style race car they build amd race at nationals. That was a blast. 120mph 3” above the pavement. 80mph donuts. Yeehaw!

@bskeet congrats to you and your boy. Thats fantastic!

@bskeet wow! Impressive young man, must have some great parents!🌾🌾🌾💙❤️🥰 good times!

Congrats! But I'm curious, how much NIL change is he getting? :)

Was a chem so don't know about aerospace specifics, but the most important thing I would suggest trying to do is get an internship over his sophomore to junior year summer (freshman to soph year summer even better). Doesn't even have to be in the field he wants to go in, just something somewhat technical and it will give him a leg up on getting his choice of junior year internships which transitions into a good job. Study abroad programs over the summer are a decent substitute for internships since internships can sometimes be hard to get that early. High GPAs are nice, but typically just used as a cut off point so anything above a 3.5 usually doesn't hold you back. Someone with a 3.5 and 2 years of summer experience looks a lot better than a 4.0 with not much else to show.

IDK how the ROTC program would affect this, as he might not be looking for private employment but would keep his options open in case he changes his mind down the road.

Thank you all. LOL @wissox .

@MR11, if he's in ROTC, they take that summer btw Soph and Jr for bootcamp/basic training. I'm bummed about that because your advice resonates strongly with me. My internships made all the difference for me and my career. But he wants to serve so strongly. He counters that he'll be employed (by military) no matter what when he graduates.

Study abroad is something we have also encouraged, and again, ROTC may put a wrinkle in this, but thank you for mentioning! I will be sharing the advice and anecdotes ( @dylans ) from the bucketeers.

Yeah figured that might be the case! At least ROTC would still give some good life experience, so better than working a random summer job even if the military route doesn't pan out

@bskeet also remember they change their mind a lot in college, hopefully for the best! I'm sure he'll have great mentors a long the way! Maybe @FarmerJayhawk !

@Crimsonorblue22 awww you're too kind!

@bskeet that is so awesome. Congrats