bms said:
I was wondering if there is an occupation within the RegForce Officer spectrum that can make significant usage of a Computer Science degree? I'm talking(of course) about computer programming or "software engineering"(as they dolled it up a bit).
I have read about
14 Wing - Squadrons & Units - 14 Software Engineering in the Air Force, as well as the
Aerospace Control(Officer) occupation.
I've read this forum for a long time but just registered today, thought this post seemed appropriate.
Anyways, I'm in a similar situation, I'm not sure where you are now, but I'm about to enter the third year of a computer science degree. At first I was looking to see if there was a computer programming job in the military. After searching around, I realized that it was pretty unlikely. If you want to "serve your country" through programming, check out the CSE (part of the DND) or look at other civy jobs in the DND and you should be able to find something.
Anyways, I started thinking about it, and wanting to join the military was partially due to wanting a bit of adventure, and sitting around writing computer code doesn't exactly fit in with this. I also realized that even though I enjoy CS, I really don't care if I spend my life writing code or not. But looking around the recruiting site, even if there aren't any "programming" jobs, there looks to be lots of jobs that a CS degree would work quite well for. CELE and SIGS have been mentioned, and there are also non specific degree jobs. Personally, I'm interested in the navy, and MARS, although not at all CS specific, the math involved in earning a CS degree sounds like it would be an asset. I'm also hoping that CS is appropriate for a Naval Weapons System Engineer (it says "Engineering Degree or some science degrees" - and technically my CS is neither, but it is very closely linked to software engineering, and in many universities CS is a science degree (not at mine), plus in the job video it mentions software engineering being a specialty you can do later in your career - so I hope CS would be a good entry point into this career).
Anyways, I'm not in the military or anything, but from looking around, that's more or less what I've come to.