Sharmil S. Modi '99 was an avid Air Force cadet before he chose to leave ROTC in order to make an academic switch.

"I have nothing bad to say about the Air Force except to say that they were inflexible in a major choices," Modi says, adding that he misses the program and "the interesting, genuine and dedicated people in it."

Modi entered ROTC as a physics major on the advice of a high-school recruiter who told him he could "get out of it" after he got to college.

But when Modi decided to concentrate in economics after his first year, he said, he was faced with the choice of either settling for physics or leaving ROTC altogether, he said.

Although Modi won a scholarship for medical school, which would have permitted free choice of an undergraduate major, he would have been required to serve eight years in the Air Force at the end of his medical residency.

Modi ultimately chose to leave ROTC. "I wasn't sure at 18 that I wanted to be a doctor," he says, explaining that the combination of medical school, a residency and eight years in the Air Force might keep him committed until age 38.

Army ROTC official Rooney acknowledges that students who want to switch majors may encounter resistance from the Army if they're moving into "soft sciences" or humanities.

Rutley says the Air Force ROTC usually tries to assuage student concerns, while keeping paramount the military's need for trained professionals.

He recalled an MIT student who recently wanted to switch his major from a technical engineering field to mechanical engineering. Since Air Force MIT already had "too many" cadets in that area, however, the student's request was denied, and he was forced to choose between staying in ROTC and adjusting his academic interests.

"He chose to stay in the program," Rutley says. "We helped him work through his problems with specific courses. That was a case where his freshmen experience got him really excited about the program."

Cadets who leave the program after the start of their sophomore year may face sizable debts.

Suzanne E. Phillips '92 left Air Force ROTC after two years because she wanted to change her major from mathematics to English.

"It was not difficult to switch from one technical field to another, or from a non-tech to another non-tech, but not across the divisions," says Phillips, now a graduate student in English.

Phillips got by with loans from Harvard, a 15-hour-per-week job and an outside fellowship. But in the long run, Phillips says, leaving ROTC has left her in financial straits. She still owes the Air Force money for her first two years with the program.

"I think it is a really good program for...people who go in for the right reasons," she says. "For other people like me, it didn't work."