While many students are spending their spring breaks relaxing, the Marine-option Navy ROTC students at Iowa State will travel to Michigan to take part in Officer Candidate School (OCS) prep training.

This OCS prep training is meant to resemble actual OCS, which is the school that hopeful future officers go to and train to become a commissioned officer.

“It’s supposed to emulate the type of environment we’ll see at OCS, it’s obviously hard to put the strain of six weeks into three days, but that’s what they try to do,” said Brian Bavlsik, sophomore Navy ROTC student who will be taking part in the prep training for the second time this year.

Roughly 20 Marine-option ROTC students will go to the prep training, which will take place March 16 through 18.

“A lot of it is stress management,” Bavlsik said, adding that there is little time to sleep, a minimum amount of food and short periods of time to eat during the training.

While the training covers topics that the students have learned through their schooling up to this point, the wrinkle is the added levels of exhaustion and stress.

The participants are mostly looking at keeping their motivation as high as possible while going through the training, Bavlsik said.

The goal of the experience is to prepare the Marine hopefuls for the training they will endure in the future, so they know what they will face.

“Being in that environment, it’s interesting to see how you react to the stress and see how others fail to handle it,” Bavlsik said. “There’s a lot of self-exploration.”

Patrick Egan is a freshman who will participate in his first prep training. Egan said he has not been told much information in terms of specifics of what to expect at the training.

“I’m definitely a little nervous, but I know it will help me prepare for the future, so I’m going in with an open mind,” Egan said.

The factor of not knowing exactly what to expect is done on purpose because as a Marine officer, “we won’t always know what we will have to face.”

Like Bavlsik, Egan feels that the learning he has gained through the ROTC program so far will prepare him fully for what is to come.

“I feel like we’ve covered lots as an ROTC unit, and I feel ready to go into the training,” Egan said.

The trip will not add relaxation to the students’ spring break, but it will prepare them for their futures.

“In the moment, it sucks, it’s not supposed to be fun,” Bavlsik said. “But when you reflect, experiencing that shared hardship with the other midshipmen creates a bond.”