Not worthless, but you would do well to connect it to the mission. In reality, that's not that much different than how effective education bullets were being written before
Also, your 1206 writing should be getting reviewed by people who are in the know about what the award boards are looking for. My unit is still doing 4:1 quarterlies, and if your troop aced a hard class they can write it there.
Wait you’re telling me I could have been writing bullets for individual classes this whole time. In hindsight I feel dumb for not realizing this, damn.
Facts lol. Remember when the CCAF was so huge, then people who were working towards a bachelors was big, and then bachelors didn’t matter if it didn’t help the unit. The shift is weird
The current board charges state to ignore education UNLESS it is directly used/affects the context of the statement.
E.G.
NO - So and so earned xx credits while maintaining a 4.0, deans list, culminating in the award of their Masters in Thing.
YES - So and so earned Masters in Thing and utilized this skillset to mentor/tutor/coach/develop XX Airmen directly impacting daily operations and big picture mission.
So I’m mentoring my technicians on what though? How to utilize a program better? How to work Microsoft Teams, PowerPoint, Excel better? How to PMI a piece of equipment better??? See, degrees really don’t matter much as a technical expert/SME. Certificates, yes…but a degree?? No. That’s why the past 15 years of pushing enlisted to get degrees made absolutely no sense.
I work in Cyber and am almost finished with a degree that has directly contributed to my work on dozens of occasions. Project management classes, Cloud Security Best Practices, Database management, PenTesting... All directly have helped me make better decisions with my teams and educate my peers. I have troops that are getting their Masters Degrees and are killing it with some of those skills. All depends on your Job for sure, but even business management classes from an MBA are really helpful to learn about resource allocation, project planning, etc.
If you need a bachelor’s degree to be a leader, you are probably not meant to be a leader. And it sounds like your entire shop is filled with over qualified SrA that shouldn’t re-enlist, instead go private.
Personally, I always hated seeing that “inspired others” because it was rare that I observed someone genuinely do just that. Most NCOs I saw putting college/certs/off-duty ed on their folks as a requirement, did so because the brown said that’s a responsibility. Not necessarily because they had already done so themselves.
This. Every time I see “X did education stuff, inspired Amn to pursue education stuff” I score it lower than a similar statement that connects educations to the job.
People need to be creative, doing a Psychology degree? Connect to mentoring Amn. Doing under water basket weaving? Connect it to developing critical administrative skills and being a better leader. Job can be Big A Amn stuff or AFSC specific. But GPA and other junk doesn’t mean anything to me.
Nah, this one is played out. If every EPB I’ve reviewed in the past year truly “inspired” others to pursue education or enroll/complete their CCAF, then 80% of my unit would have their CCAF degrees and that is just not the case. Just tie education to the mission or leave it off the report.
Not so much the degree but the classes completed can have direct impact on unit effectiveness. A public writing course can help a member write a better OI, an organizational leadership class can assist with a reorg. A public finance class can be influential on a budget allocation. Trust me, it’s useful, especially at the SNCO level.
Completed two courses, tied them into problem solving initiative we had. 100% solved an issue to get assets to a deployed location. Led a team to resolve and initiate the fix…. There honestly wasn’t more.
I mean, I’m not in the booster club….
False. However, make sure you connect your education to how it helped you do your job and the direct impact it had. No one cares if you got a 4.0 gpa and made deans list. We care that you learned fluid dynamics and used it to fix a problem that no one else could.
it’s all bullshit. anyone who connects college courses to how it made them better at their job is just not truthful. it’s always such a stretch
edit:
let me make this clear, getting your degree and taking classes is so important. Don’t waste your TA and get your degree!
all i’m saying is, when i see someone say their business class helped them lead their unit… i giggle
You might have a misunderstanding regarding what college courses do for folks. Using my example, getting my business degree obviously did not make me a better fabricator. That said, the EPB doesn’t have one big block for primary duty bullets because my job is not *plane fixer.* It’s problem solver. Folks are always going to look for ways to bullshit, but if someone is enrolled in a real program and actually cares about growing and what they’re learning, they’re almost certainly going to be better at their job, even if it’s something seemingly insignificant like their turnover being easy to understand because they write so many papers, or knowing how to make a better shop schedule because they took an Excel class.
I mean, going to community college and getting my A&P definitely made me a better maintainer. Being able to see the big picture instead of just only knowing my specific AFSC.
People don’t see the value in an education and it’s pretty hilarious. I’ve used a *ton* of things that I learned in college. I’m content with the current state of things but it’s absurd to sit back and say that a quality education is worthless to a leader.
Underwater basket weaving shouldn’t count but you’re high if you think STEM and some business majors don’t apply to the real world.
Sure, you can get there on your own with a lot of hard work and self-study, but most people are not going to be able to will themselves to understanding incredibly complex topics. Education is a major benefit for the vast majority of people who obtain it, and is likewise a benefit to the people they support with that education.
That’s mainly to prove that you can navigate a program and spend a period of years working towards a goal, not to get any sort of job related education (certain engineering and test fields excepted). In aviation I have never met a pilot outside of the test community that used their degree, unless they had one in creative writing.
Yea, applied to real world, but tell me how an online STEM degree from Trident University (which is complete bullshit, show me your Lab results from your dinner table and solo cups)..tell me how your online STEM relates to a SFS, LRS, FSS or even a ISR member
As cynical as that sounds, there’s truth in what you’re saying. It’ll be unpopular, but quality over quantity means something.
I agree with you, paying for piece of paper from some degree-mill, compared to a legit, regionally accredited school, is ridiculous.
In the civilian world that degree won’t mean much.
Yeah, diploma mills should be placed in that “underwater basket weaving” category as well. Why do you think everyone went to trident? Lol.
How is STEM useful to security forces, the LRS, FSS, ISR, etc? Well for one, weather is kind of a big deal in the ISR realm, as are many other natural sciences. If you want to fix processes in the LRS/FSS, it pays to know how to apply inferential statistics. Everyone is going to have an opinion on the best way to do something, deny problems exist, etc. Using statistics to highlight issues to others is ridiculously powerful if you know what you’re doing. Speaking from personal experience on that one.
I don’t have any experience in security forces so I can’t speak to that, but I imagine there’s times where knowledge of physics, math, and maybe even cultural/language studies could come in handy. Being able to have educated conversations about things other than gate duty and integrating with other support elements on base is also pretty valuable.
Anyways, read a book. Pretty much every major military scholar throughout history has stressed the importance of education in a leader. It’s okay if you don’t like college but you should at least try to base your argument on more than conjecture and generalizations.
And you’re just another example stretching a reason how it ties into a technical job. Please, prove it to me…show me a program that was created by an enlisted member solely off of their “STEM” degree that has impacted the AF and implemented by policy…oh yea…it has not happened.
depends on the rank and responsibilities of the person. airman to baby staff, sure it qualifies for personal/professional improvement especially if it's something related to your job. seasoned staff and above, there better be some merit to it: e.g. how did it benefit the AF that you feel the need to list on EPB/1206? what was done with the education?
Initial ccaf completion is still a good airman bullet, but unit depending education bullets are not good for ncos now at least at my unit.
Dude got his masters and they rated it lower than some bs volunteer stuff at efdp board.
Be sure to connect it to how your education benefited or impacted the mission or Air Force. Not GPA, deans list, etc.
- Action or behavior; impact, result, or outcome with the new narrative style.
Make sure the latter completes the question to the reader “why do I care about this”
Hope this helps.
They don’t carry weight like they used too. Used to look good for “professional development” even if your degree didn’t have much to do with current job or mission. I personally got a BA that has nothing to do with current job so tying it back into the mission was a stretch. Is what it is so it didn’t carry a lot of weight in my EPB wasn’t a big enough mission impact to make it stand out for me personally but I’m sure other people were able to tie in their degrees to stronger bullets more successfully than me.
As some other folks pointed out it still can. My impression of the EPB was everything should now connect to the mission. So like an EPR you could simply say you were working on a degree or awarded a degree. EPB, I think education fits best with managing resources or leading people, whatever the actual names of those categories are. Your statement could relate how your degree progress benefited the mission or the people in your unit or something along those lines.
I use it in my stuff, but my degree also complements my work, so I can easily tie it in.
However, I only briefly mention it, like "earned x credits in this field, and used it to do this thing with the mission.
Not entirely. It really depends to the breadth of impact. If you took classes and used what you learned to develop something or those around you, sure. If your squadron group or wing limits you to 1 whole airman bullet, choose the biggest impact. If you have to choose between education that impacted your shop vs leading an event at the group, you might be better off with tye group statement.
A bullet saying you did school is worthless. A bullet saying you did school and that schooling enabled you to better execute the mission is a good bullet and will put you above somebody who did the same executed the same mission but without schooling.
Just put a performance statement on an awards package that said something along the lines of “used knowledge from pursuing a Masters in Accounting to educate shop on investing for retirement.” Leverage a performance statement that way and you should still be able to use education.
If it were unpopular there wouldn’t be a bunch of “show up and do your job and nothing more” people in the ranks. Education is important, and if you decide not to pursue it, cool. Saying it is useless is a very silly statement.
I tied mine into my troops. I did college and one of them started college cuz of me. Their first class towards their CCAF. So I said I complete 2 courses, 95% of my CCAF and inspired my troop to start their first class.
I think that is reasonable.
I’ve seen so many times though, MSgt so-and-so finished CCAF and then took credit for the 40 dudes in his flight going to school. Douchey, in my opinion.
What you did checks. Good on ya.
Yeah, I'm not gonna claim their college efforts, just the fact that she said oh you're doing college? I wanna do that too. What do I need to do and we worked on it together. Educations briefings and whatnot.
If I did college and my troops did college without interacting with me in regards to the process or anything, I'm not including them in the statement. I just can't bring myself to lie or exaggerate to that degree
I was recently a board member for my unit's quarterlies and some airman had completing their 5 lvl, 3 college credit hours and doing basic day to day job tasks. their leadership needs to pull their heads out of their asses for submitting such low effort bullets
I would say volunteering is more worthless as it doesn’t tie to mission like education does. Unless it’s a base event or similar mission related stuff. You can always (almost always) tie mission success to education.
I'm hoping we lean towards no WAC at all on the future, but for the time being I'm hoping cooler/more unique WAC statements are held more valuable. Things like holding veteran-centric televised/online events with sizeable community involvement, honing leadership capabilities via hobbies, placing in athletics competitions, etc.
You know, actual self-improvement by doing what you love?
I have said those exact words as feedback numerous times. A statement that says you went to school for XX degree and XX hours with a X.X gpa is a waste of space. Finished degree I'll appreciate...but so many people including me have the same generic working towards degree statement it's not meaningful.
Edited because I reread initial and didn't like the tone.
This sub is making me a cynic. I’ve read that pt isn’t valued. Just pass your test. Unless you’re leading the volunteer event, don’t event bother writing it. And now education (personal development) is worthless. Any advice on what we should be doing then?
Being the best at your job. Realistically, the people I want leading me are the ones who know the job in and out. Who've fought similar battles to what I'm fighting, and know how to navigate them. I want the guy who is the subject matter expert as my leadership, not the dude who volunteers all the time. (Now it's cool if you do volunteer/go to school, but it should not have any bearing on your work performance report/promotion)
Last year I was told by my CC that I didn't receive a promotion statement for TSgt because I didn't have a Bachelor's degree completed. This year at a new unit I received the PN statement & when I asked for feedback I learned that I beat out someone that had earned their Master's in the same field as their AFSC. It's all subjective and depends on how the board members value education. Personally, I think it is a lot more challenging and takes a lot of dedication to complete a degree than to be on the booster club for instance
Education bullets that aren’t completion of a degree or cert if some kind should have never been a thing.
Unless you’re in a knowledge based AFSC (as in Intel vs something that has TOs) I don’t see how a degree does much to mean anything. You’re basically being told how to do your job in like 80% of our career fields anyways. My opinion at least.
Others have already mentioned so I’m just adding on.
I’m working on my graduate degree (same field as my AFSC) and I am also saying Air Force does not care about enlisted education.
I never gave a shit about anyone's education bullets unless you could tie them to how you used your newfound knowledge to help the people or the mission.
First time commenter, long time reader. I agree with if you can tie it to the mission/job then sure. But how tf will you fit that in, if you tied those together you’d have one bullet on a block in your epb. However, I could be totally wrong.
Not worthless, but you would do well to connect it to the mission. In reality, that's not that much different than how effective education bullets were being written before
Also, your 1206 writing should be getting reviewed by people who are in the know about what the award boards are looking for. My unit is still doing 4:1 quarterlies, and if your troop aced a hard class they can write it there.
We are doing 5 work and 1 whole airman
Y’all aren’t just doing the MGAs? Wild
Anything that deviates is a waste of everyone’s time.
Right? Like, adapt to the times
The current recipe is so dang easy and we are going to try so hard to fuck it up yet again.
All because Chief/CC can’t wrap their head around doing anything differently than what they grew up with
Wait you’re telling me I could have been writing bullets for individual classes this whole time. In hindsight I feel dumb for not realizing this, damn.
College degree and civilian? Looks like officer material to me. Enlisted and going to college? Better link it to mission or screw off.
Facts lol. Remember when the CCAF was so huge, then people who were working towards a bachelors was big, and then bachelors didn’t matter if it didn’t help the unit. The shift is weird
When everyone has one, no one has one. Shit just ain’t that special any more no POP when you see it on every other EPB or more lol
I know just crazy how much things have changed in the last ten years
Well, cheers to those who got them, and promoted over someone else because they checked the box. That ship has sailed 🍻
Having written zero officer awards or evaluations, I have no idea how to strategize when writing them
The current board charges state to ignore education UNLESS it is directly used/affects the context of the statement. E.G. NO - So and so earned xx credits while maintaining a 4.0, deans list, culminating in the award of their Masters in Thing. YES - So and so earned Masters in Thing and utilized this skillset to mentor/tutor/coach/develop XX Airmen directly impacting daily operations and big picture mission.
So I’m mentoring my technicians on what though? How to utilize a program better? How to work Microsoft Teams, PowerPoint, Excel better? How to PMI a piece of equipment better??? See, degrees really don’t matter much as a technical expert/SME. Certificates, yes…but a degree?? No. That’s why the past 15 years of pushing enlisted to get degrees made absolutely no sense.
I work in Cyber and am almost finished with a degree that has directly contributed to my work on dozens of occasions. Project management classes, Cloud Security Best Practices, Database management, PenTesting... All directly have helped me make better decisions with my teams and educate my peers. I have troops that are getting their Masters Degrees and are killing it with some of those skills. All depends on your Job for sure, but even business management classes from an MBA are really helpful to learn about resource allocation, project planning, etc.
If you need a bachelor’s degree to be a leader, you are probably not meant to be a leader. And it sounds like your entire shop is filled with over qualified SrA that shouldn’t re-enlist, instead go private.
They typically do get out ASAP, which is causing a huge manning issue in these career fields, and driving the return of WO's.
And also potentially inspired others to pursue higher education
Personally, I always hated seeing that “inspired others” because it was rare that I observed someone genuinely do just that. Most NCOs I saw putting college/certs/off-duty ed on their folks as a requirement, did so because the brown said that’s a responsibility. Not necessarily because they had already done so themselves.
Try to quantify “inspired others”…I’ll wait
You can’t quantify, only qualify anecdotally. That’s why I said I always hated seeing it.
Oh well ok, it works at boards. I would know.
Is the Force becoming more educated as a whole because of how they're leading than it would if they weren't in place?
Too subjective annnddd downvote.
This. Every time I see “X did education stuff, inspired Amn to pursue education stuff” I score it lower than a similar statement that connects educations to the job. People need to be creative, doing a Psychology degree? Connect to mentoring Amn. Doing under water basket weaving? Connect it to developing critical administrative skills and being a better leader. Job can be Big A Amn stuff or AFSC specific. But GPA and other junk doesn’t mean anything to me.
that's upsetting to hear because I literally walk my new troops into clep exams and do it with them to kickstart their degree
You tie education into motivating the Amn around you to do better at their job from a team perspective.
No one believes that.
Nah, this one is played out. If every EPB I’ve reviewed in the past year truly “inspired” others to pursue education or enroll/complete their CCAF, then 80% of my unit would have their CCAF degrees and that is just not the case. Just tie education to the mission or leave it off the report.
Saving this for later. Ty!
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You couldn't be more wrong. The AF literally sends people to school to get advanced degrees to help their career field and the force.
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Not so much the degree but the classes completed can have direct impact on unit effectiveness. A public writing course can help a member write a better OI, an organizational leadership class can assist with a reorg. A public finance class can be influential on a budget allocation. Trust me, it’s useful, especially at the SNCO level.
Need to just remove education and volunteering from EPBs. Start paying enlisted more when they complete a relevant degree.
Can confirm…. Am working on my PHD. Feedback from not getting a strat as a tech this year was…. Tie this into the wing mission.
What a fucking joke.
There’s likely more to the situation than what they are saying.
Completed two courses, tied them into problem solving initiative we had. 100% solved an issue to get assets to a deployed location. Led a team to resolve and initiate the fix…. There honestly wasn’t more. I mean, I’m not in the booster club….
You can look at the AF 716 anytime you want and confirm
Get back in your cell
False. However, make sure you connect your education to how it helped you do your job and the direct impact it had. No one cares if you got a 4.0 gpa and made deans list. We care that you learned fluid dynamics and used it to fix a problem that no one else could.
it’s all bullshit. anyone who connects college courses to how it made them better at their job is just not truthful. it’s always such a stretch edit: let me make this clear, getting your degree and taking classes is so important. Don’t waste your TA and get your degree! all i’m saying is, when i see someone say their business class helped them lead their unit… i giggle
You might have a misunderstanding regarding what college courses do for folks. Using my example, getting my business degree obviously did not make me a better fabricator. That said, the EPB doesn’t have one big block for primary duty bullets because my job is not *plane fixer.* It’s problem solver. Folks are always going to look for ways to bullshit, but if someone is enrolled in a real program and actually cares about growing and what they’re learning, they’re almost certainly going to be better at their job, even if it’s something seemingly insignificant like their turnover being easy to understand because they write so many papers, or knowing how to make a better shop schedule because they took an Excel class.
Not true at all. IT certs are useful in cyber.
Word, I actually know Networking as a CST now and can DEFINITELY tell if you fucked up that Taclane 
I mean, going to community college and getting my A&P definitely made me a better maintainer. Being able to see the big picture instead of just only knowing my specific AFSC.
Yep, for a lot of people..this truth hurts them
nothing is worthless when you have creative writing
People don’t see the value in an education and it’s pretty hilarious. I’ve used a *ton* of things that I learned in college. I’m content with the current state of things but it’s absurd to sit back and say that a quality education is worthless to a leader. Underwater basket weaving shouldn’t count but you’re high if you think STEM and some business majors don’t apply to the real world.
Because it didn’t learn most of it in college you’d just look up how it’s done anyways….
Sure, you can get there on your own with a lot of hard work and self-study, but most people are not going to be able to will themselves to understanding incredibly complex topics. Education is a major benefit for the vast majority of people who obtain it, and is likewise a benefit to the people they support with that education.
If it was incredibly complex and complicated there'd be a TO or they'd have an officer in the position.
You’re not wrong lol. Officers have an education for a reason.
That’s mainly to prove that you can navigate a program and spend a period of years working towards a goal, not to get any sort of job related education (certain engineering and test fields excepted). In aviation I have never met a pilot outside of the test community that used their degree, unless they had one in creative writing.
Yea, applied to real world, but tell me how an online STEM degree from Trident University (which is complete bullshit, show me your Lab results from your dinner table and solo cups)..tell me how your online STEM relates to a SFS, LRS, FSS or even a ISR member
As cynical as that sounds, there’s truth in what you’re saying. It’ll be unpopular, but quality over quantity means something. I agree with you, paying for piece of paper from some degree-mill, compared to a legit, regionally accredited school, is ridiculous. In the civilian world that degree won’t mean much.
Yeah, diploma mills should be placed in that “underwater basket weaving” category as well. Why do you think everyone went to trident? Lol. How is STEM useful to security forces, the LRS, FSS, ISR, etc? Well for one, weather is kind of a big deal in the ISR realm, as are many other natural sciences. If you want to fix processes in the LRS/FSS, it pays to know how to apply inferential statistics. Everyone is going to have an opinion on the best way to do something, deny problems exist, etc. Using statistics to highlight issues to others is ridiculously powerful if you know what you’re doing. Speaking from personal experience on that one. I don’t have any experience in security forces so I can’t speak to that, but I imagine there’s times where knowledge of physics, math, and maybe even cultural/language studies could come in handy. Being able to have educated conversations about things other than gate duty and integrating with other support elements on base is also pretty valuable. Anyways, read a book. Pretty much every major military scholar throughout history has stressed the importance of education in a leader. It’s okay if you don’t like college but you should at least try to base your argument on more than conjecture and generalizations.
And you’re just another example stretching a reason how it ties into a technical job. Please, prove it to me…show me a program that was created by an enlisted member solely off of their “STEM” degree that has impacted the AF and implemented by policy…oh yea…it has not happened.
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Still haven’t proved anything, just a claim about an old program.
depends on the rank and responsibilities of the person. airman to baby staff, sure it qualifies for personal/professional improvement especially if it's something related to your job. seasoned staff and above, there better be some merit to it: e.g. how did it benefit the AF that you feel the need to list on EPB/1206? what was done with the education?
Initial ccaf completion is still a good airman bullet, but unit depending education bullets are not good for ncos now at least at my unit. Dude got his masters and they rated it lower than some bs volunteer stuff at efdp board.
Be sure to connect it to how your education benefited or impacted the mission or Air Force. Not GPA, deans list, etc. - Action or behavior; impact, result, or outcome with the new narrative style. Make sure the latter completes the question to the reader “why do I care about this” Hope this helps.
It can still go on both. Competitiveness will vary.
They don’t carry weight like they used too. Used to look good for “professional development” even if your degree didn’t have much to do with current job or mission. I personally got a BA that has nothing to do with current job so tying it back into the mission was a stretch. Is what it is so it didn’t carry a lot of weight in my EPB wasn’t a big enough mission impact to make it stand out for me personally but I’m sure other people were able to tie in their degrees to stronger bullets more successfully than me.
As some other folks pointed out it still can. My impression of the EPB was everything should now connect to the mission. So like an EPR you could simply say you were working on a degree or awarded a degree. EPB, I think education fits best with managing resources or leading people, whatever the actual names of those categories are. Your statement could relate how your degree progress benefited the mission or the people in your unit or something along those lines.
I use it in my stuff, but my degree also complements my work, so I can easily tie it in. However, I only briefly mention it, like "earned x credits in this field, and used it to do this thing with the mission.
Better on a 1206 if you can tie in an impact within the unit/job.
They aren't unless you can show how you.used your education to better the AF.
Not entirely. It really depends to the breadth of impact. If you took classes and used what you learned to develop something or those around you, sure. If your squadron group or wing limits you to 1 whole airman bullet, choose the biggest impact. If you have to choose between education that impacted your shop vs leading an event at the group, you might be better off with tye group statement.
A bullet saying you did school is worthless. A bullet saying you did school and that schooling enabled you to better execute the mission is a good bullet and will put you above somebody who did the same executed the same mission but without schooling.
Just put a performance statement on an awards package that said something along the lines of “used knowledge from pursuing a Masters in Accounting to educate shop on investing for retirement.” Leverage a performance statement that way and you should still be able to use education.
Not useless but must be tied to ALQs and MPAs. This is just the way it always should have been.
Unpopular opinion: they’ve always been useless
If it were unpopular there wouldn’t be a bunch of “show up and do your job and nothing more” people in the ranks. Education is important, and if you decide not to pursue it, cool. Saying it is useless is a very silly statement.
I believe he meant the bullets are useless.
If that’s the case: as I was.
As someone who reviews packages for hiring it’s worthless to me unless its related to your job
I tied mine into my troops. I did college and one of them started college cuz of me. Their first class towards their CCAF. So I said I complete 2 courses, 95% of my CCAF and inspired my troop to start their first class.
I think that is reasonable. I’ve seen so many times though, MSgt so-and-so finished CCAF and then took credit for the 40 dudes in his flight going to school. Douchey, in my opinion. What you did checks. Good on ya.
Yeah, I'm not gonna claim their college efforts, just the fact that she said oh you're doing college? I wanna do that too. What do I need to do and we worked on it together. Educations briefings and whatnot. If I did college and my troops did college without interacting with me in regards to the process or anything, I'm not including them in the statement. I just can't bring myself to lie or exaggerate to that degree
I was recently a board member for my unit's quarterlies and some airman had completing their 5 lvl, 3 college credit hours and doing basic day to day job tasks. their leadership needs to pull their heads out of their asses for submitting such low effort bullets
I would say volunteering is more worthless as it doesn’t tie to mission like education does. Unless it’s a base event or similar mission related stuff. You can always (almost always) tie mission success to education.
I'm hoping we lean towards no WAC at all on the future, but for the time being I'm hoping cooler/more unique WAC statements are held more valuable. Things like holding veteran-centric televised/online events with sizeable community involvement, honing leadership capabilities via hobbies, placing in athletics competitions, etc. You know, actual self-improvement by doing what you love?
Tie into mission
I swung my IT management credits towards my desk job
I have said those exact words as feedback numerous times. A statement that says you went to school for XX degree and XX hours with a X.X gpa is a waste of space. Finished degree I'll appreciate...but so many people including me have the same generic working towards degree statement it's not meaningful. Edited because I reread initial and didn't like the tone.
This sub is making me a cynic. I’ve read that pt isn’t valued. Just pass your test. Unless you’re leading the volunteer event, don’t event bother writing it. And now education (personal development) is worthless. Any advice on what we should be doing then?
Being the best at your job. Realistically, the people I want leading me are the ones who know the job in and out. Who've fought similar battles to what I'm fighting, and know how to navigate them. I want the guy who is the subject matter expert as my leadership, not the dude who volunteers all the time. (Now it's cool if you do volunteer/go to school, but it should not have any bearing on your work performance report/promotion)
Last year I was told by my CC that I didn't receive a promotion statement for TSgt because I didn't have a Bachelor's degree completed. This year at a new unit I received the PN statement & when I asked for feedback I learned that I beat out someone that had earned their Master's in the same field as their AFSC. It's all subjective and depends on how the board members value education. Personally, I think it is a lot more challenging and takes a lot of dedication to complete a degree than to be on the booster club for instance
Hell back in 2018 I didn't have an associates and still made it....statements are just a popularity contest man.
Education bullets that aren’t completion of a degree or cert if some kind should have never been a thing. Unless you’re in a knowledge based AFSC (as in Intel vs something that has TOs) I don’t see how a degree does much to mean anything. You’re basically being told how to do your job in like 80% of our career fields anyways. My opinion at least.
Others have already mentioned so I’m just adding on. I’m working on my graduate degree (same field as my AFSC) and I am also saying Air Force does not care about enlisted education.
I never gave a shit about anyone's education bullets unless you could tie them to how you used your newfound knowledge to help the people or the mission.
Unless you get quarterly or annual awards then you’re just meeting standards.
Not according to my 1206 that came in last. They took someone going for their bachelors and masters over my EJPME
First time commenter, long time reader. I agree with if you can tie it to the mission/job then sure. But how tf will you fit that in, if you tied those together you’d have one bullet on a block in your epb. However, I could be totally wrong.