So how will you be assigned? Alot has to do with timing..what classes are opening up when you get here? Did you score high enough on the DLAB for those? Lastly, which ones of those are you interested in? The Navy tries not to put you on a "casual" status for too long after you get here, so they won't be putting you into a language that doesn't have a class starting for 3 months down the road after you get here.
As a single sailor, you'll be living on the Presidio of Monterey in the Navy barracks. Intially, you'll be in 2-people to a room, one floor shares a common restroom barracks. After a period of time in your studies, you'll probably be able to move to a different barracks with 2-people to a room and a bathroom in that room. Just a bit of a heads up on the living situation. Married sailors will probably live at Ft Ord, in on-base family housing (no BAH, but you receive COMRATS or BAS).
Comments about the courses in general were already made, but almost all the instructors are native and you'll certainly get a great dose of culture and history of that region/country.
All language programs at DLI are intense and fast-paced. General advice - never fall behind, study hard, make good impressions on the instructors and you'll get through here. Once you start to slip though, you may find yourself quickly behind the rest of the class and in academic trouble.
Navy Phase Restrictions
Note: The following information was provided by BK1014, a member of our Message Forum.
The Navy has Three Phases at DLI.
Phase 1: You are put in this phase the minute you arrive. Rules are as follow: No civilian clothes, and PT clothes ONLY to and from PT.
Work hours are from 0700-1600 M-F. During those hours you are pretty much restricted to the computer lab and the class room. You basically do some in processing, retake all your classes that you took in boot camp, study Basic Military Requirements (BMR), a large book that has test questions that you must complete within three weeks, and study a smaller book about the handling and destruction of classified materials, called the Mod 11.
Liberty hours: M-Th 1600-2100 on base liberty. Fri-Sun you have off base liberty. Friday you have from 1600-2200, Saturday 0700-2200, Sunday 0700-2100. You CANNOT be in ANY personally operated vehicle. Cabs and Buses and your own two feet will be the primary mode of transportation.
Phase II. Before you can phase up to Phase Two you have to complete a number of inspections. You have a sea bag inspections (making sure you have minimum stow for all items), one inspection for every uniform and three room inspections. The room inspections are unannounced. You must also complete your BMR study questions and take a test on Mod 11. Now, I've only been at DLI for three days now, but from what I here the inspections are HARDER than those in boot camp. For the first three weeks, the PT here is HARDER than the PT in boot camp. So, in order to phase up to Phase Two, you must complete the 1.5 mile run in less time than you did in boot camp. For 17-19 year olds, in 11:00. I'm not sure about the rest, but I believe you need a Good-Low run time. Until all of those are completed, you can not phase up. The quickest you can phase up is three weeks, but it can take as long as you want it to take.
Phase two has extended liberty hours, 2300 on school nights, and 0000 on weekends.
Phase three has no curfew... show up for muster and you are good to go.
Language Selection
Right now only 8 Languages are being taught (for Navy). Cat IV: Arabic, Chinese, Korean. Cat III: Persian-Farsi, Serb-Croatian, Hebrew, Russian. Cat I: Spanish. Those are your only "options" and I have not received my language yet, but I did give them my top 3 selections of Korean, Russian, and Arabic. Everybody is telling me this about my selection. Korean I probably won't get because I only have a 103 DLAB. Korean is the hardest language here, apparently it is 75 weeks long now, and they are trying to make it a Cat V language. Russian is hard to get because they don't really need too many Russian linguists anymore. Arabic, a lot of people get Arabic, and since it's in my top three, guess which language I'm probably going to get :). Arabic. But we'll see how it goes. The word on class wait time is Feb-April (4-6 months), however, word is coming down the chain of command that there will be a number of classes opening very soon and that many people will be put into classes within a month, but we'll see how it works out.
