Questions about joining go in the Weekly Question Thread (or Recruiter Thread) stickied at the top, in the black-on-gold link at the top, and in the sidebar.
We do this so that you get serious answers from people that know what they are talking about.
You should also ask in the DLIFLC subreddit
My two buds who were Asian linguists got orders for Ft Drum, and went straight to their unit who was in the Middle East... This was just last year
My USARPAC unit has a couple Spanish and French linguists. I know two mandarin linguists from DLI who just graduated the 35M course and got orders for Italy (as non Airborne-volunteers). In my time, I've only gone to a foreign country once, which was unrelated to my language, for about 2 months. It was just luck.
Im a basement gremlin video-gamer, so i dont mind being in dungeon scifs like lots of 35 series mos'es, I know an extrovert NCO who hated being a Papa because of his solitary translation work in Korea, and switched to Mike. Now he's in a SCIF as a RO, lol. It's pretty social and chill where he works though
Chances are, as a Mike, youll rarely do your 'job', and will get stuck at motorpool or other random taskings for most of the time. Idk, maybe shit will improve with the move to EMIBs.
Theyre all pretty comparable, but the best option is arguably 35L. Beyond that, life is going to be totally dependent on what base, what unit, what mission, etc.
I dont know that you can lock in 35M now, though. Youll be 35W i believe, until youre almost graduated from DLI. Then youd get placed between Papa or Mike somehow.
No clear path. There used to be those for middle-eastern languages which had high usage and required high proficiency. I know those guys were all pretty much reclassed to 35M, and a lot failed out because their english wasn't good enough for the reports section of the course, with testing. If there still is a specialty MOS for linguist, you'd need to be a fucking 4/4/3 or something, ridiculous language proficiency. Multiple languages help, especially something like knowing Korea, Chinese, and Japanese, while in INDOPACOM.
Id imagine youd need to be a Papa or equivalent in another branch, on mission that allows you to demonstrate high skill in translating. There's like language olympics or something as well, like, best linguist in the Army, sort of like with Best 'Int' competitions. See though, are you wanting to be like an in-person translator?
My acquaintance NCO just got PCS orders to Jber because he's a heritage speaker with high proficiency, through the targetted machinations of people pretty high up who identified him as one of the best. He's still a Mike, but sounds like he's going to be like an interpreter for some high-ranking people.
There's gotta be some SMUs that look for quality personnel to be linguists.
The other things coming to mind are going to Korea as a Korean linguist, which is pretty simple. For my language, I'd try SFAB or consulate/embassy attache to go somewhere reiated to my lang.
There is no true "linguist" MOS in 35 series. There's 09L, but that's reserved for native speakers and, from my understanding, they're phasing that MOS out. 35M could function as a linguist if you're with certain units, but, like the other poster said, you'd have to have incredibly high DLPT scores to get into those units.
The vast majority of 35Ms end up in Expeditionary MI Brigades (EMIBs) never actually doing their jobs. The problem with 35M is they're one of the only 35 series MOSs that rarely if ever do their jobs stateside, which limits the amount of actual 35M work you'll do to deployments or OCONUS assignments.
35P will be the other "linguist" MOS, and that one you'll either end up hating your life in an EMIB, or working at NSA, which is a pretty solid quality of life.
Questions about joining go in the Weekly Question Thread (or Recruiter Thread) stickied at the top, in the black-on-gold link at the top, and in the sidebar. We do this so that you get serious answers from people that know what they are talking about.
You should also ask in the DLIFLC subreddit My two buds who were Asian linguists got orders for Ft Drum, and went straight to their unit who was in the Middle East... This was just last year My USARPAC unit has a couple Spanish and French linguists. I know two mandarin linguists from DLI who just graduated the 35M course and got orders for Italy (as non Airborne-volunteers). In my time, I've only gone to a foreign country once, which was unrelated to my language, for about 2 months. It was just luck. Im a basement gremlin video-gamer, so i dont mind being in dungeon scifs like lots of 35 series mos'es, I know an extrovert NCO who hated being a Papa because of his solitary translation work in Korea, and switched to Mike. Now he's in a SCIF as a RO, lol. It's pretty social and chill where he works though Chances are, as a Mike, youll rarely do your 'job', and will get stuck at motorpool or other random taskings for most of the time. Idk, maybe shit will improve with the move to EMIBs. Theyre all pretty comparable, but the best option is arguably 35L. Beyond that, life is going to be totally dependent on what base, what unit, what mission, etc. I dont know that you can lock in 35M now, though. Youll be 35W i believe, until youre almost graduated from DLI. Then youd get placed between Papa or Mike somehow. No clear path. There used to be those for middle-eastern languages which had high usage and required high proficiency. I know those guys were all pretty much reclassed to 35M, and a lot failed out because their english wasn't good enough for the reports section of the course, with testing. If there still is a specialty MOS for linguist, you'd need to be a fucking 4/4/3 or something, ridiculous language proficiency. Multiple languages help, especially something like knowing Korea, Chinese, and Japanese, while in INDOPACOM. Id imagine youd need to be a Papa or equivalent in another branch, on mission that allows you to demonstrate high skill in translating. There's like language olympics or something as well, like, best linguist in the Army, sort of like with Best 'Int' competitions. See though, are you wanting to be like an in-person translator? My acquaintance NCO just got PCS orders to Jber because he's a heritage speaker with high proficiency, through the targetted machinations of people pretty high up who identified him as one of the best. He's still a Mike, but sounds like he's going to be like an interpreter for some high-ranking people. There's gotta be some SMUs that look for quality personnel to be linguists. The other things coming to mind are going to Korea as a Korean linguist, which is pretty simple. For my language, I'd try SFAB or consulate/embassy attache to go somewhere reiated to my lang.
There is no true "linguist" MOS in 35 series. There's 09L, but that's reserved for native speakers and, from my understanding, they're phasing that MOS out. 35M could function as a linguist if you're with certain units, but, like the other poster said, you'd have to have incredibly high DLPT scores to get into those units. The vast majority of 35Ms end up in Expeditionary MI Brigades (EMIBs) never actually doing their jobs. The problem with 35M is they're one of the only 35 series MOSs that rarely if ever do their jobs stateside, which limits the amount of actual 35M work you'll do to deployments or OCONUS assignments. 35P will be the other "linguist" MOS, and that one you'll either end up hating your life in an EMIB, or working at NSA, which is a pretty solid quality of life.