Military academy for teens prepare students -- called cadets -- for college, life and the military by placing a high emphasis on discipline and performance. Mentors, by virtue of their higher ranks at the school, encourage cadets to stretch themselves in their search for skills and knowledge while maximizing their talents. Many military high-school academies offer a college preparatory curriculum. The Lyman Ward Military Academy in Camp Hill, Alabama; St. John's Northwestern Military Academy in Delafield, Wisconsin; and the New York Military Academy in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York offer military education and college preparatory work for high-school students.
Military colleges combine a college education with a military environment that allows students to obtain the needed skills for a career in the military or in civilian life. Military colleges emphasize the military's expectations of confidence, adaptability, loyalty, honor and critical thinking by infusing the curriculum with rigorous academics alongside hands-on learning and mentoring relationships with staff. Students at a military college may choose upon graduation to pursue a military career or return to the civilian world. Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont; Maine Maritime Academy in Castine, Maine; and Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia, offer military college educations.
Each branch of the military runs its own military academy, which offers four-year scholarships, four-year degrees, supplemental paychecks and a guaranteed job after graduation. Students join the military upon their entrances as freshmen, and must agree to five years of military service after graduation. Interested students may look into the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in New York; the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland; the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado; the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut; and the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, New York.
Armed forces branches operate technical schools that provide training to soldiers for the specific jobs they will do within the military. Soldiers embark on this training immediately after basic training. The training provides the minimum coursework that a soldier needs to begin working in the job. Some courses last only two weeks, while others last for two years. Most courses last for one to three months. Some colleges and universities grant college credits for the technical school studies that a student completed while in the military.