Julia Zajac (12) and Mattias Juza (12) have been awarded the NROTC 4-year National Scholarship, which in exchange for five years of Navy service and participation in Navy ROTC during college, provides them with full-ride scholarships to five schools of their choosing (once accepted).
Juza says the scholarship opened up more opportunities for him, allowing him to attend Cornell University for electrical and computer engineering in the fall.
“It does allow me to go [to] colleges that I might not have been able to afford previously,” Juza said. “I was accepted to Cornell through early decision. So I’m able to go to that and have my whole tuition paid for. It’s not free college, that’s what our ROTC instructors tell us a lot. It’s just a different option. I am gonna be paying back that money with my time in the Navy. I like to see it as a win-win scenario for both the Navy and myself.”
The scholarship application process is long, resembling a college application with several 500-700 word essays and letters of recommendation. It also includes a fitness test and interviews with active-duty Navy officers.
Juza found out he was awarded the scholarship in early November.
“It was kind of a relief to see that I’d been selected,” Juza said. “It is a very competitive scholarship, especially to get selected that early. A lot of people still haven’t found out. So I take pride in the fact that they decided I was qualified for the scholarship.”
Juza qualified for the scholarship through his commitment to Westview’s NJROTC program.
He has participated in NJROTC since his freshman year and worked his way up to his current leadership role as Commanding Officer.
“The military does value long-term commitments, and I’ve stuck with the program,” Juza said. “I’ve matured as a leader, but I’ve gone through the process of being new, learning new things, and then starting to be, sophomore and junior years, a mentor. And then I became more of a manager later in my junior and senior years. It’s that kind of evolution that they like to see, where you’ve kind of played every position, and you’ve contributed something to a community; making sure it’s a safe place for everyone, making sure everyone’s welcome and respected.”
Juza said that Westview NJROTC and his role as Commanding Officer has helped him develop necessary skills for his future career in the Navy.
“[It’s] helped me mature as a leader and gain the kind of people skills that are necessary for a type of job that you need as an officer in the Navy,” Juza said. “Whether it’s management, whether it’s mentorship, or whether it’s just leadership in general.”
Juza said he chose Cornell in part due to its NROTC program, which he said is similar to NJROTC at Westview.
“When I was visiting Cornell, I knew that I might do ROTC,” Juza said. “So I visited these ROTC units and talked with their professors of Naval Science, seeing what the culture is like, how they approach teaching leadership, and how they prepare students. How do they balance ROTC with helping students actually get through normal college life? Cornell University just resonated with me the most. They have a very similar approach to how Westview’s junior ROTC functions. They’re all about empowering student leadership and letting students take charge and find out who they really are as leaders without necessarily being told what to do.”
Instead of participating in NJROTC at Westview, Zajac took a different approach. She has been involved in Navy preparation outside of school for seven years. At 10 years old, she joined the League Cadets, the younger group of the U.S. Navy League Cadet Corps, and is now a part of the Sea Cadets, the more senior group of the y
outh program. Zajac said she joined the group because she thought the girls looked good in uniform, but now views the Navy as a good starting point for her future career in Naval Architecture engineering. The specific unit of the nationwide program that Zajac is a part of meets two Saturdays a month for drills and for week-long sleepaway camps in the summer and winter. The drills consist of numerous Naval preparation skills.
“At our specific unit, we have a different plan of the day every single time,” Zajac said. “Sometimes self-defense. We had a medical drill, we did rifles, we did physical training. We have a whole physical test we do. We get guest speakers. And then [we do] your basic military drilling formation and marching.”
Although she doesn’t know yet where she will attend college, Zajac said the scholarship will allow her to explore more options than she would have otherwise.
“My family can only afford to send me to an in-state school,” Zajac said. “But because I have a scholarship, I can now go to all of my schools that I selected [that] are out of state.”
The scholarship doesn’t only open up opportunities for college, but the Navy as a whole will allow for new valuable experience.
“[Being an officer in the Navy] is a very good experience to have,” Juza said. “It’s not for everyone, but getting to see the world, seeing humanity in a different perspective, and working with people you might have never worked with before—that’s what I see as the opportunity.”
