Hey, guys. And welcome back to Space nerd confessions. I’m Cynthia, and today I’m going to be talking about enlisted to officer programs in the Air Force and Space Force. So I’ve had a lot of questions based on my journey in the Air Force and how I was enlisted for eight years and when I commissioned into the Air Force. Now, Space Force through OTS, but OTS is obviously not the only program that you can use in the Air Force or Space Force to commission.
So today I’m going to talk about six different programs. So if you do enlist into the Air Force and Space Force and aspire to become an officer, I recommend that you look into the requirements, especially for each of these programs and to become an officer overall in order to set yourself up for success before joining and becoming an Air force or Space Force officer. All right, so for the first two programs, we have Air Force ROTC programs. The first one is airmen scholarship and commissioning program, or ASCP. And then the second one is SOAr, which is scholarships for outstanding airmen to ROTC.
Surprise, I can even memorize that. Man, I’m impressed. But for both of those programs, you’ll be removed from active duty and go to school full time with ROTC, with a scholarship. And then once you’re completed your degree and complete college, you’ll be graduating to become a second lieutenant of the Space Force or the Air Force. So the only difference between ASTP and SOAR ASTP is where enlisted airmen will apply for the program, and SOAr is where you’re nominated by your commander for the program.
For the next two programs that I’m going to talk about, it’s the POC Herp program. So there’s a one year pockerp or a normal pockerp, and this is the professional officer course early release program. Boom. So for these programs, you will be removed from active duty to go school full time to finish your degree, but there is no scholarship. So you can use your GI bill or GI benefits in order to pay for your school, or you can pay out of pocket.
But the only difference between the one year and the full pockerp is that the one year you need to be able to complete your degree within one year, to be removed from active duty, to do school full time in order to come back as an officer, and then for the normal pocker, that is, for two years to finish your degree in order to return as an officer. Active duty officer training school, or OTS, is another program that you can use to commission from enlisted to officer in the Air Force. Or Space Force. It sounds like a really cool program. I wonder why.
But anyway, you can apply for this program up to a year before finishing your bachelor’s degree, which is what I did. I think I was about six months out before I applied for this program. And it’s a little bit difficult with this program, however, because depending on the year will depend on how many boards there are and how competitive it is. So it can be a little bit difficult when you’re planning your career by applying for this program and for the last program I’m going to be talking about today, it’s the lead program and that’s the leaders encouraging airmen development. Yes, that’s right.
So for this one, the commanders will be choosing sharp enlisted airmen to go to the Air Force academy, which is so cool. You’ll be going to the academy for four years and get your degree and then also accumulating the active duty time. And then once you graduate, you’ll become a second lieutenant of the Air Force or Space Force, obviously, just depending on what job that you choose and get selected for. I also wanted to mention for that lead program, those are the most stringent requirements as far as age wise and family wise. So if you are interested in the lead program, you have to be unmarried with no dependence.
And also you need to be at least age of 17 and no older than the age of 23 on July 1 of the year of entry. So that’s all I have. Thank you guys so much for watching. I really enjoy doing these videos. If you want more information about OTs or the Air Force ROTC scholarships, more specifically the ASTP soar and I believe the pock herb I will talk a little bit about in my other YouTube videos on my channel.
I put the links below so you can check those out. And if you have any more questions or if you want me to explain anything to you guys, just reach out to me and I’ll make a video on it. And I always appreciate your support. And you guys have an awesome day. Thank you so much for watching.
Bye.