Amu

[Van]

One thing I find really cool about AMU is that the instructors all seem to have experience in the field. Did you have some really great instructors?

Of 12 (13 counting the comp) courses, 10 (I think, been a while) instructors, there were two that I would recommend avoiding. Marian Leeburg instructed a course in threats to national security, but was only interested in genocide. Rob Rice, instructing a course on naval warfare in antiquity, made it clear that he was the font of all knowledge on the subject, and that I should bow and scrape before him in the hopes that I might assimilate some fragment of his great accumen.

All the others were outstanding, and free from the two great vices of academia (bringing irrelevant agendas to the classroom like Ms. Leeburg, and condescending intellectual arrogance towards your students like Mr. Rice), with great real-world experience as well as academic credentials.

(D)id your classes at AMU actually teach you how to do specific intelligence collection work or intelligence analysis-related tasks and methods that you could then take to a job and use as an intelligence analyst?

Don't know about the collection stuff, but I learned some great and extremely useful stuff about analysis.

You're lucky that you're in a reserve intelligence unit. There aren't too many reserve units like that. Is this an Army or Navy unit? And did they send you to their service-specific intel school?

Any military reserve unit will send you to service specific specialty schools. Good units will get you to more than the minimum if you want it, and frequently to joint or sister service schools.

[J-Man]

Van writes:

"Of 12 (13 counting the comp) courses, 10 (I think, been a while) instructors, there were two that I would recommend avoiding. Marian Leeburg instructed a course in threats to national security, but was only interested in genocide. Rob Rice, instructing a course on naval warfare in antiquity, made it clear that he was the font of all knowledge on the subject, and that I should bow and scrape before him in the hopes that I might assimilate some fragment of his great accumen. All the others were outstanding, and free from the two great vices of academia (bringing irrelevant agendas to the classroom like Ms. Leeburg, and condescending intellectual arrogance towards your students like Mr. Rice), with great real-world experience as well as academic credentials."

That's really great to hear! I'd never expect EVERY teacher in any school to be good. But 10 out of 12 is a real good ratio. And if I do enroll in AMU, I'll be sure to avoid Mr. Rice and Ms. Leeburg. Thanks for those tips.

"Don't know about the collection stuff, but I learned some great and extremely useful stuff about analysis."

I guess I need to be a bit more specific in my question. I'm sure you learned lots of theory, history of the intelligence profession, etc. But did you learn a lot of "nuts and bolts" intelligence analysis skills that analysts can use on the job? You know what I mean? Let's say for instance that someone gets thru the Master's in Strategic Intelligence and gets hired to be an intelligence analyst by some agency. Is there lots of useful stuff learned in the AMU program that can be used right away on an actual intelligence job? Did you work with any intelligence analysis software (analysts' notebook, etc) as part of your assignments? What about writing intelligence briefs and reports? Was there a lot of that in your program? Sorry if I wasn't clear in my earlier question, and I appreciate your insight. Thanks.

"Any military reserve unit will send you to service specific specialty schools. Good units will get you to more than the minimum if you want it, and frequently to joint or sister service schools."

I was in the reserves myself. I'm a former National Guardsman (11B Infantry MOS). I've thought of re-enlisting, and trying to get into an intelligence unit. But from what I hear, it's hard to get into those units these days since so many people are looking to get intelligence training. I have another question for you related to reserve duty. Back when I was in the National Guard, I never thought about clearances and stuff like that.

Now, this may seem like a dumb question, but do people in reserve units automatically get clearances? Did I have one back when I was in the National Guard in an infantry unit?