ROTC isn’t just about the tactics.

The Reserve Officer Training Corps can be found on more than 400 campuses nationwide, including several well-known private schools like Notre Dame, Columbia and Stanford.

“People ask, ‘Why would a student of that caliber do ROTC?’” said Army Lt. Col. Brian Rogers, a professor of military science at the UW. He said there are a variety of reasons for student ROTC involvement.

Some of those students are looking at serving their country or doing something other than a typical career. But more than anything, he said, the ROTC builds leaders.

“I’m a firm believer that leaders are not born — they’re developed,” Rogers said. “And they’re developed if you give them certain instruction.”

By the time ROTC students get to their senior year, they’re spending an average of 19 hours a week working outside the classroom on ROTC projects and training.

“It’s a lot, but what we expect of them is a lot,” Rogers explained. “We want to put our students in stressful, demanding situations, because that’s what’s going to happen when they’re in charge.”

As seniors, ROTC students meet three or four times a week in small groups to plan the leadership labs for younger students.

“We’re not trying to compare ourselves to chemistry courses; it’s different,” Rogers said. “But just because it’s different doesn’t mean it’s easy. We try to intellectually challenge our students.”

Army Master Sgt. Corey Sanders, a senior military instructor, stressed that the ROTC program pays a lot of attention to how its students are doing in their studies. “People who are in ROTC are college students just like any other college student,” he said. “Each [ROTC program] focuses on student first.”

Every quarter, ROTC students are required to take one military science class. “But you can’t major in military science,” Sanders said. “They still need a degree.”

Outside the classroom, Army ROTC students do physical training Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings in Husky Stadium.

All of the practical tasks — training at Fort Lewis in swimming, map reading, land navigation, the rifle range and various simulation programs — are in addition to what the students are studying at the University for their major.

“Our classes get progressively harder,” Sanders said. Juniors spend the entire year preparing and training for a 30-day leadership assessment camp that takes place at Fort Lewis during the summer for all the ROTC cadets in the country.

The year after that, seniors run the battalion and fill the positions of a regular army. “We treat them like lieutenants,” Sanders said.

Because ROTC students have to balance their military duties with their regular schoolwork, time management becomes crucial.

“The greatest challenge is planning ahead to get my work done,” said SPU senior Adam Gregory, who comes to the UW to be a part of the Air Force ROTC. “Sometimes it’s late nights, and then you’re up at 5 a.m. a few times a week. You get really organized and structured.”

For senior Owen Ryckman, cadet colonel for the UW’s Army ROTC, the greatest challenge is prioritizing.

“All teachers are convinced that their class is the most important thing, and they don’t understand that some of us are building a career,” he said.

As long as younger students practice good time management, it’s no problem, he said.

“The biggest time commitment I have is supervising other students who haven’t been in the army,” said Ryckman.

Ryckman was on active duty for six years and served in Korea from 2002 to 2006 before going back to school.

“I try to lend my experience,” he said. “I try to facilitate the soldiers getting the highest quality training while not getting their lives eaten up by all things military.”

Ryckman’s co-leader, senior Andrew Conway, who is command sergeant major for the battalion, is thankful that most of his field training lands on the weekends.

“It’s a little harder as a senior to get that time,” Conway said, acknowledging the increased level of responsibility upperclassmen have in the battalion. “But then, my schedule is a little more flexible than it was last year.”

All branches of the ROTC on this campus are aware of their students’ school lives and try to help in any way they can to make sure they’re remembering their school duties.

“We counsel once a quarter,” said Air Force Col. P.K. White, professor and chair of the Department of Aerospace Studies. “The number-one thing I’m to brief them on is the minimum GPA they can have, which is a 2.5. … If they go below, we restrict their activities.”

The office works hard to be available when students need help.

“We’re actively engaged in the students’ lives,” said Maj. Tim Pochop, assistant professor of Naval Sciences. “They’ll come in and study with us if we see they’re starting to stumble.”

For underclassmen, there’s an entire corps of older students who have been through it all before. There is always someone to whom they can direct younger students if they need guidance or help, Pochop said.

“ROTC is like a fraternity or sorority in that it’s a group of people who have a similar ethic and goal in life,” Pochop said. “It’s a built-in group of friends.”

While students in the Army ROTC are pursuing a wide variety of majors, the Navy wants its students to be concentrated in more technical majors — engineering and hard sciences. But there’s still a fair amount of diversity within the program.

“I want to be a nurse, and I was looking into the Air Force or the Navy,” said freshman Kristi Ferchland of the Navy ROTC. “I thought I’d get the best experience and training in the Navy.”

Navy ROTC students participate in drill once a week and work on physical training at least once a week. In addition to that, junior officer candidate Mark Rice said, there are other teams they’re all a part of, such as Navy soccer or rifle and pistol training.

Harder than balancing schoolwork, Rice said, is trying to find time to devote to family. Several of the older students who were previously on active duty are married and have children, but the unit is understanding of family obligations, Rice said.

“During the school year, we really don’t have any free time,” Conway said. “There’s always something you can devote to ROTC.”

A unique challenge of ROTC is the relationships between student leaders and the underclassmen they instruct. Because seniors run the battalion and lead all the practical tasks, they need to maintain a certain professionalism between themselves and the younger students.

“In the military scheme, there’s a certain way that professional friendships versus private friendships have to be carried out,” Ryckman said. “So I have to be more aloof than I’d like to be. I’m not lacking for friends, but I don’t necessarily hang out with all the cadets.”

Leading is all about style, Conway said.

“It’s very difficult,” he said. “I have to be stern — it’s in my job description. But we want them to excel.”

He said the students know that the leaders have been in their place before and will give them at least that much respect.

Conway said that after a while, the seniors get to know the younger students, as there are lulls in the field when they can ask them how’re they’re doing.

“The things we do build a really strong bond,” he said. “We all suffer together. It’s unlike any friendship I’ve had before.”

[Reach contributing writer Molly Rosbach at development@thedaily.washington.edu.]