Everyone has an opinion on different things. Here at Hueneme, lots of students have mixed opinions on the program NJROTC. As a member of the program and have been for the last 4 years, I’ve heard a lot of opinions. Sometimes positive but also negative.

It’s only for military kids.

It’s not true. There are students who do plan on enlisting after high school but that is very few. at least half of the program, from what I’ve seen at least. There are students that don’t plan on enlisting at all and just plan to go to college.

The teachers are strict.

Who? Chief and Commander? They’re the most calm teachers I’ve ever encountered. They can be straight up but that’s if someone is failing or just doing bad things. Other than that, they’re very chill and by far my favorite teachers. Sorry Mr. Thomas.

The exercise they do looks tough.

If you’re a freshman, it can be a little hard especially because no 14 to 15 year old student can handle 16 exercises and a mile run. Once we’ve done it a couple times, the students get used to it. I’m one example, I absolutely hated the exercises when I was a freshman but later on in that year, I got used to it.

It’s not for girls.

Hi, I’m a living female that’s still in the program. It can be odd for girls because there are certain rules that maybe they just don’t agree with probably because of the uniform. For example, there is that girls that wear the uniform can’t wear heavy make up or their nails have to be a nude color. I can assure you that yes the program is for girls.

The uniform has too many rules on it.

Actually, there really isn’t that many rules concerning the uniform. There are about 10 rules for both the male and female uniforms but they aren’t harsh. Most of the rules are mostly for hair and facial hair but still aren’t very harsh. Everything else is mostly measurements for the items on the uniform but that’s about it.

It doesn’t teach anything important

The program teaches a lot about leadership, what to do during a shooting/emergency, what to do during a natural disaster, and so many more real topics that well be more useful in everyday life then trigonometry. I’ve seen people who didn’t give a darn about anything and loved hanging around the bad people graduate with straight A’s, enlisted, or went to four year university. It just molds a person into a good human being.

These are some of the few misconceptions that I’ve heard. Trust me, there are tons. I highly recommend this program to literally any human being. I remember being that person that was planning on leaving but I’m still here. I don’t regret joining as I met amazing people and learned so much through this program. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

Featured Image Credit: NJROTC logo 

For more info on NJROTC Check out this article HHS NJROTC