For the Marine option Navy ROTC students, the end of their spring break wasn’t spent on a beach or relaxing at home like many others. They spent this past Thursday through Sunday near Battle Creek, Michigan, for a training activity.

The training trip is an annual activity for the midshipmen. The goal is to prepare them for Officer Candidate School (OCS), which is an intense, multiple-week training school to become Marine officers.

OCS prep, also called Bulldog prep, incorporates two days of activities, one for land navigation and one of mock missions, Riley Stephens, sophomore Navy ROTC student, said.

As a sophomore, this was Stephens’ second time going to Bulldog prep.

“The first year I had no clue how intense it was going to be, but this second year already knowing how that would be, I was better prepared,” Stephens said.

This prep is meant to be intense and stressful. The midshipmen had little time to relax during the day, and the leaders were constantly on them to work harder. Even during breaks to eat, the midshipmen would endure the same intense environment.

“It’s loud, it’s stressful, the sergeant instructors are shaking stuff, yelling, no matter what you do you can’t go fast enough,” Stephens said.

Breaks didn’t come until it was time to sleep, but even that time was spent preparing for the next day’s task.

“It’s all to get us ready for the intensity of battle, or, for us, OCS,” Stephens said.

Patrick Egan is a freshmen midshipman, so it was his first time attending a prep training like this.

“It was chaos,” Egan said. “I knew it would be hard, but it was even harder than I was expecting.”

For Egan, the intensity of the drill instructors was the biggest hurdle. They were wanting the midshipmen to yell and scream to train their vocal cords.

“I’m just not a loud person, so that was something I had to adjust to,” Egan said.

Many students who were at the Bulldog prep for the second or third time tried to help the first-timers as much as they could.

“We definitely try to help them out without eliminating the surprise of what they’re going to have to face,” Stephens said.

Egan said that the help of the midshipmen who had already experienced Bulldog prep helped him and his fellow freshmen cope with the stress. They knew the basics they needed to know going into it, so they could focus on dealing with the new stresses.

Here at Iowa State, the classes and skills the Marine option Navy ROTC students are learning day to day are exactly what they are doing at this prep training.

“Tactically I was prepared. For the most part, the unit prepared us for what we had to do,” Egan said.

For Stephens, in his second experience at the training, he said that he could see more specifics from himself on where to improve upon compared to his first year, when it was all a bit overwhelming. He hopes to get more involved with the leadership roles next year at the training.

Egan’s biggest goals for next year are to improve his assertiveness and build his leadership skills.

“I want to put myself into uncomfortable situations and get more involved in leadership during the training,” Egan said.

Training trips like this one also provide opportunities for the midshipmen to build camaraderie among not only their own unit, but the units from other schools that are there. Stephens said that building relationships with other future Marines that you may see down the road in your training helps to build the deep bonds that are required to serve together.