SMART Scholar Has a Bright Future Ahead

The Department of Defense (DoD) Science, Mathematics and Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarship-for-Service Program provides full tuition coverage, mentorship, summer internships, a stipend and guaranteed post-graduate employment with the Department of Defense.

Elias “EJ” Bailey (’27) will be heading into his second year on Embry-Riddle’s Daytona Beach Campus, where he studies Computer Science with a concentration on Cybersecurity. He is one of five Embry-Riddle undergraduate students selected.

Department of Defense SMART Scholarship

EJ applied for the DoD SMART Scholarship while in his first semester at Embry-Riddle, then eagerly waited for months to hear an update.

“I was sitting in my physics class, and I looked at my phone and saw an e-mail from them that I had gotten it,” he said. “I was pretty shocked.”

He will be completing summer internships and ultimately working full-time for his sponsor, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) in Colorado Springs, Colorado, which was his first choice on his application.

“During the summers, I’ll go do an internship with them at their facility between sophomore and junior and between junior and senior year,” EJ explained. “And then when I graduate, I’ll go work for them for as long as they had sponsored me, which will be three years.”

Choosing Embry-Riddle for Computer Science

EJ originally toured the Prescott Campus in his home state of Arizona with an interest in Cybersecurity, but after speaking with friends in the data science and computer science industries, he decided to switch tracks to computer science with a focus in cybersecurity.

When he discovered the Computer Science program on the Daytona Beach Campus, only an hour from his grandfather’s house, he had found the perfect fit.

One of the main reasons he chose Embry-Riddle over a public state university was the ability to take degree-related classes from the start, rather than taking a couple years of general education classes first. With one year on campus now under his belt, he’s already gained new interests from his classes, like coding.

“After this year and having a couple classes of [coding], I got more interested in it,” he said. “I do want to get better at various coding languages so that in whatever job I'm in, I can know better what’s going on when it relates to that.”

Big Summer Plans

This summer, EJ will be completing a ten-week internship with the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Keyport, Washington, which he applied for at a Career Expo on campus. He will also be visiting MDA’s location in Huntsville, Alabama, to meet with other SMART Scholars sponsored by the agency, and then heading to Washington, D.C., for an orientation with all SMART Scholars.

Immediately following his internship in Washington state, he will be off to Zambia for a three-week study abroad program.

Looking to the Future

After he returns from Zambia, EJ will be fulfilling his dream by studying as an exchange student in Abu Dhabi for the entire 2024-25 school year, inspired by his parents, who both studied abroad in college.

“Starting from Orientation Week, I was trying to get information on what I could do for study abroad,” he said.

He’s travelled the United States with his family on road trips, but a trip to England with his high school soccer team piqued his interest in international travel. He’s not nervous about the new experience of a full school year overseas.

“I think it’ll be interesting learning how to figure out being independent in another country,” EJ said. “I’ll probably learn a lot.”

Thanks to the DoD SMART Scholarship, his future is outlined for him for the next six years. He knows where he’ll be working after graduation and how he’ll be spending his upcoming summers.

And after that?

“I may just love [working at MDA] and want to stay there, but for a while, I've been hoping to end up with a private government contractor company,” EJ said. “Along with that, one of the career paths that I think would be pretty cool is penetration testing, which is where you get hired on by a company to attack their company as if you were a bad guy and see what they can do to improve.”

Whatever else his future may hold, it’s sure to be bright.

What could your future hold? Find out with Embry-Riddle.