Let’s talk about mistakes airmen make at tech school. Now, I’m giving you a heads up. So by the time you get to tech school, you know the things to avoid doing so you can have a great tech school experience. So let’s talk about dorm room issues. Going into this is forgetting to have your mandatory items on you.
Another mistake that people make within the dorm room issues is locking themselves out of their rooms because when you arrive, you are given one key and if you lose that key, you are going to be in big trouble and the MTLs will have to come and let you into your dorm. And then there is going to be failing their room inspections, which is really difficult to do. If you follow the checklist, there are a few things on there that are automatic fails. Leaving your locker unlocked. So you see it is sitting here and it looks like it’s locked.
So if I just see that real quick and I walk out, then they come and do an inspection and they see that it wasn’t completely locked. And another thing is leaving things plugged into outlets. So you need to make sure you have everything unplugged. The only things that are allowed to stay plugged in is the refrigerator, microwave and the wifi. So as long as you take your time and follow the list, you’re going to be good to go.
And just keeping your room clean all the time in general is a great idea. So going to this is just being a good roommate. Please be a considerate roommate. Make sure you are both working to keep the room clean. You’re taking turns taking out the trash.
I don’t know why this is such an issue for people. Take the trash out, you just tie the bag and you carry it to the dumpster. It’s not that hard. The next thing I need to tell you about is the sponsor of today’s video sandbox. If you have not gone to BMT yet, make sure you check out sandbox and tell your friends and family because they simplify the way you can send and receive mail at BMT and it makes things so much easier.
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Now this relates more so to uniformity within the flight. So depending on where your tech school is, temperatures may be different because if you go to BMT during the summer, you’re not issued a fleece. If you go during the winter, you’re issued a fleece. So then it’s up to all the people who weren’t issued one to go buy one. And people don’t want to go spend $80 to buy a fleece.
They’re like, oh, that is just too expensive. Yet they’ll go buy t shirts and new shoes and new pair of jeans like every single weekend. But then they don’t want to spend $80.01 time on a fleece that they’re going to wear for years and completely get their money’s worth out of it. So all of this to say it would be freezing degrees outside and people didn’t have their fleece, so we were not allowed to wear our fleece because you have to be uniform as a flight. All of that to say, just get the things that you need to have for everybody to be uniform because you’re going to need to get a fleece at some point in your career anyway.
So just get the fleece. And another thing is black gloves overall. If there’s just something you need to do to be uniform as a flight, just get that item. To be uniform as a flight, you’re going to have to get it at some point anyway. Just get it.
And it makes everyone’s life easier. The next mistake that people make is not knowing the AFIS. AFI is Air Force instruction. There are going to be times where someone comes up to you and tells you something that they think the AFI says. So a tip would be be receptive to the information that somebody is giving you, but also look that up for yourself.
So you know what the rule says. That way you’re not passing around hearsay and giving people the wrong information. And that way you just know the rule. Moving forward, there could be times where something bigger could happen that someone may try to accuse you of something based off of what they think the rule is when they don’t look it up themselves, but they run and tell somebody something just because of what they are assuming. But if you know what the AFI says, you can advocate for yourself, which is super important.
You have to be your own advocate because at the end of the day, you are going to be the only person that has your own back. So you just need to make sure that you are doing what the rules say. And in order to do what the rules say, you have to know what the rules say. So I highly encourage you all to check out the AFIs, learn what the rules are there’s so many AFIs out there, it’s not like you can just read through all of them. But anytime a situation comes up, just go learn what the rule is on that situation.
Then you know it for next time. And then next time something else comes up and you are just going to build your knowledge of the AFI. That way you can advocate for yourself later and teach people the right rules. This next one is very common, and this is just issues with school. This could be falling asleep in class, this could be not paying attention in class.
Like if you are in a classroom with a computer and your instructor is teaching and you are online shopping or things like that. If you get caught doing these things, you can get a counselor and all of your instructors can see it, and your mTLs can also see it as well. So if this is something that is reoccurring, your mTLs can punish you for this as well. And you could get other paperwork that goes on your record. And this is just something that is easily avoidable.
So do your best to pay attention and learn your job because this is what you’re going to do when you are operational. So there’s really no point to avoid learning while you’re at tech school. That’s what you’re getting paid for. Alcohol related incidents, you all this is unfortunately such a common occurrence at tech schools. Incidents consist of things such as underage drinking, being of age and being too drunk, drinking and driving, having alcohol in your dorms.
You all this is such easily avoidable things that people are continuously getting in trouble for, especially when it comes to underage drinking. Please do not do it. It is not a good decision. And you know that ahead of time. You can literally ruin your own career and you haven’t even made it to operational air force yet.
If you are with people who are encouraging you to do it, find better friends, because that’s not the type of people that you need to be hanging out with that are going to encourage you to do the wrong thing. And speaking of that, there are situations where there are people who encourage people to underage drink or to have just one more drink. If you’re that type of person, stop being that type of person. Stop it. Get some help.
It is not cool whatsoever. And there’s also situations of people trying to get away with underage drinking. And maybe they get a drink and other people that they’re out to eat with don’t realize it at the time or don’t realize they’re underage and then something like getting caught for this jeopardizes the entire group that you’re with. So because you wanted to underage drink, you are literally costing other people, possibly their careers. This is serious stuff.
You all on top of that, you also can get paperwork like an article 15 and that stays on your record into your operational military career. And that’s even if you make it that far, because people literally get kicked out of the Air force for alcohol related incidents in tech school depending on the situation. So please just avoid it. This doesn’t mean if you are of age that you can’t go out with some friends, have some drinks, but just be responsible. Have a designated driver.
Simple option. If you are underage, just don’t drink. If you are around people where you see that something wrong is happening, someone is starting to have one too many drinks. Be that responsible person to be like, hey, you need to slow down. If you see someone who is underage drinking, you need to cut it off right then and there.
You need to tell the mtLs, because if it comes back around later that they were underage drinking and you were with them, then you’re going to get in trouble for it and they’re going to get in before it. So you’re literally putting yourself in a bad situation. You’re encouraging that person that it’s okay, that there’s not going to be any repercussions for what they’re doing. So as much as that sucks, you just need to cut things off sometimes. And a lot of times it comes down to cutting out the friends that you’re hanging out with because you don’t want other people to put you in a bad situation and you don’t want to be put in a bad situation.
You all. So obviously you can tell that this is a very heated topic for me because it is just things that are easily avoidable, that people just continue to put themselves into those situations and it is just super frustrating. Anyway, you all, those are things that you can avoid doing at tech school. So you can have a great tech school experience. And a big tip of mine is you have to be selective with your friends, select friends that are going to be encouraging, uplifting and push you to do the right thing because that is going to help you become a better person.
And you all can help help each other set your career up for success. So I hope you enjoyed. Be sure to subscribe. I’ll see you in another video.