The United Services Military Apprenticeship Program, or USMAP, is a cooperative effort between several branches of the United States Military and the U.S. Department of Labor (DoL) to offer DoL recognized apprenticeships in a variety of occupations and job specialties.
In 2017, the program saw it’s 100 thousandth participant; an important milestone for the program offering Journeyman-level apprenticeships to journeyman-level certificates of completion for qualifying service members in the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and U.S. Coast Guard.
Who Can Participate In USMAP?
According to the USMAP official site, qualified candidates must meet all of the following requirements:
- Applicant must be active duty Navy, Marine Corps, or Coast Guard or be serving as “Full-Time Support.”
- Minimum of one-year retainability on the servicemembers existing military commitment.
- High school diploma / GED.
- Assigned an occupational specialty and working in that specialty.
- Must complete any required job-specific training or formal classroom instruction.
- The apprenticeship must be in the applicant’s primary military occupation at the current assignment.
Additional duties, temporary duties, collateral duties or other “side jobs” do not count for the purposes of the apprenticeship under USMAP.
The application (or a version of the application form) available via the USMAP official site may be confusing for some applicants since the form allows the applicant to select any of the eligible services listed above, but also Army and Air Force.
This may be indicative of nothing at all and merely a boilerplate form modified for the purposes of admitting qualified applicants, or it might indicate future plans to open USMAP to Army and Air Force members.
At the time of this writing, there is no indication that USMAP has plans to offer anything other than what is mentioned here-Army and Air Force members wishing to apply should contact USMAP or the Department of Labor to determine whether they are eligible at application time.
Are Army Or Air Force Members Allowed To Participate?
The USMAP official site has no provisions for applications from Army or Air Force members at the time of this writing.
What Does USMAP Offer Qualified Applicants?
Those who successfully apply for the USMAP program are offered a Registered Apprenticeship, which is a formal and structured training program combining On-The-Job Training (OJT) with technical instruction, practical and technical training, and other opportunities.
These programs are industry-specific, meaning every apprenticeship will have its’ own job-specific instruction rather than a one-size-fits-all careers approach.
How Long Is The Apprenticeship?
Applicants should expect to attend between two thousand to eight thousand work hours, broken into skill sets with a defined amount of training per area. According to the official site, every year of the program (a minimum of two thousand hours) will feature a minimum of 144 hours of apprenticeship-related training.
USMAP Classroom Instruction Requirements
What are the requirements for classroom instruction (versus the required OJT) under this program? Potential applications should know that the classroom requirement portion may already be satisfied depending on the service member’s military experience.
Those who have completed a qualifying “A” school or Navy Enlisted Classification (NEC) training (for Navy and Coast Guard) “will usually meet” the classroom requirement.
For Marines, military occupational specialty (MOS) training is considered sufficient. In cases where military occupation schooling or other required training has not happened or have not yet been completed, the USMAP guidelines permit substitution of “formal related civilian training such as vocational schools, college classes, trade schools, and correspondence courses.”
What Occupations or Military Specialties Are Eligible For USMAP Apprenticeships?
The list of military occupations eligible for USMAP apprenticeships is long-far too long to list here. They are broken down by career field/MOS/Rate and the complete lists (broken down by military service) can be found at the official USMAP website.
The occupations are quite diverse, ranging from Aviation Boatswain’s Mate to Yeoman.
If I Am Accepted Into The USMAP Program, What Am I Required To Do?
During the apprenticeship, participants must not only receive the training and instruction required by the occupation, but also document progress through the program via a series of weekly and monthly reports.
Apprentices are expected to log and submit all hours worked “for each skill from the Work Processes Schedule” each week, in half hour and full hour increments. Participants are expected to log their activities each work day for the weekly submission with the understanding that potential employers will be able to view these documented work hours.
Do I Need A High School Diploma Or GED To Qualify?
Yes.
My Military Retainability Does Have Enough Time Left For The Full Program. Can I Apply For The Time I Have Left In The Service?
USMAP requirements for approval include having enough enlistment left (“retainability”) to complete the program. You may need to consider re-enlisting or waiting to apply until after you have re-enlisted. The short answer is, no, you cannot participate without enough time in service left to complete the apprenticeship.
How Can I Apply For The USMAP Apprenticeship Program?
Applications, forms, program descriptions, and more are available for download at the USMAP official site.
If you are currently not eligible for this program, you may be interested in the link above since it also includes links to other apprenticeship programs outside USMAP including a nationwide resource directory.
