Enjoy your college experience, it is once in a lifetime!

Many of us students tend to hear

this during our senior year of high school. What if college wasnt your option? What would be
said then? ( Just tried getting into the flow of writing, not the real introduction.)

This research is about why high school graduates join the military after graduation. The
main purpose is to find out if many students that decide to join the military are doing it because
they weren't a good candidate for college or did they have the goal of actually serving. If the
issue is not qualifying for college, was it due to the lack of information on the requirments to go
to college and do they plan to have a successful career in the military. (Expanding soon)

During my research I have found other researches that have been conducted throughout
the 1900s. I was able to discover many reasons on why students joined the military instead of
going to college. Most of these reasons were related to the lack of opportunity due to their race,
social status, and propaganda that had influenced them. Since the 1900s these reasons are still
relevant today, but also according to the NYC Department of Education the College Readiness in
2013 had been only 31.4%. In 2015 only 35% of high school students were considered College
Ready, Jeremiah Kittredge, the CEO of the pro-charter group Families for Excellent Schools,
said the numbers remind us that with two thirds of high school students failing to graduate
college ready, education in New York City is in a state of emergency. (Cite CBS.) Now
currently, Chancellor Carmen Faria is working on the expansion of college readiness to be
provided and emphasizes in more school.

Without college readiness how are students expected to simply go to college. Now this is
where the military ties in the future for many seniors. With self- exposure to becoming college
ready and going out to college fairs, there are several encounters with military recruiters. During
an interview with high school graduate of 2016, Oliver Kula, I had questioned him on his
recruitment experience and how he was able to make a decision of choosing the military instead
of going to college. I started to look into the military during a college fair, one minute I'm
searching for the ideal college, next i found myself speaking to a recruiter. I honestly didn't know

why I was even talking to them but at the same time I knew it wouldn't harm to learn more. It's
not like I really even knew what an ideal college was. Oliver was accepted and had planned to
attend Hunter the Fall of 2016 but he stated Learning about the military and hearing about their
experiences definitely gets a person thinking I could do that. I can have a better future within the
military rather than college. Throughout the interview he assures that even if he felt more
prepared for college he would still choose the military, he believes he can be more successful
within the military.

--- still working on the next paragraph---

I also found stories of actual high students who state why they joined the military. I
noticed that in some surveys women were excluded or specific races were emphasized such as
the hispanics and blacks. I believe the researches should be done without any exclusions but due
to low percentages it wasnt taken any interest. I plan to address the issues mostly on the reasons
rather than who the individual is themselves. In order to approach my topic I plan to interview
both students and Military personnel, and hopefully hear experiences recruiters themselves have
heard. I plan to reach out to both the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corp., and high school
graduates of 2016. I will also try to find more recent surveys taken during the 2000s since most
of my research are from the 1900s. The purpose of the research question is to have a better
understanding on the decision students are making, and to see if they are doing it because they
possibly feel like they dont have much to offer. This topic is important to me personally because
majority of my family is in the armed forces, I am the first to go to college before enlisting. My
approach to this topic specifically is because i would like to know why others join.

References:

Bachman, J. G., Segal, D. R., Freedman-Doan, P., & O'Malley, P. M. (1998). Does enlistment
propensity predict accession? High school seniors' plans and subsequent behavior. Armed Forces
& Society, 25(1), 59-80.

Elder, G. H., Wang, L., Spence, N. J., Adkins, D. E., & Brown, T. H. (2010). Pathways to the
All-Volunteer Military. Social Science Quarterly, 91(2), 455-475.
Kleykamp, M. A. (2006). College, jobs, or the military? Enlistment during a time of war. Social

Science Quarterly, 87(2), 272-290.

Silow A.(2012, Aug 29).Why They Choose The Military. The Press Democrat. Retrieved from
http://teenlife.blogs.pressdemocrat.com/12004/why-they-chose-the-military/

-need to set up the citation-

http://schools.nyc.gov/Offices/mediarelations/NewsandSpeeches/2013-2014/CHANCEL
LOR+WALCOTT+ANNOUNCES+MORE+STUDENTS+ARE+GRADUATING+HIGH+SCH
OOL+READY+FOR+COLLEGE+AND+CAREERS.htm