Senior Success: NJIT's Jaime Felice Is Poised to Become a U.S. Air Force Pilot
After four years at NJIT, career prospects for Jaime Felice ’21 are about to take off, and the sky is the limit — literally.
Felice has definitely taken a path less traveled at NJIT, joining four other cadets this year in the graduating class of NJIT’s decorated Air Force Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (AFROTC) Detachment 490. In just a few weeks after Commencement, she’ll be commissioning as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force, and has been selected to become a pilot.
It’s a dream for many — the Air Force only adds about 400 pilots a year.
“I knew that commissioning as a second lieutenant was the final goal of ROTC, and being here now is unreal,” said Felice, an Oakland, NJ native. “This career ambition sparked in high school. … I came to NJIT knowing I wanted to do something meaningful, which for me is joining the military, and I love the idea of being able to fly planes to protect my country. Learning I was selected to be a pilot once on active duty, I’m absolutely thrilled, grateful and extremely proud.
Above: Felice in the cockpit of a C-130 Hercules at Little Rock Airforce Base for the Ops Air Force career opportunity program.
“Everything I’ve worked towards the past four years is becoming a reality on May 31 at the commissioning ceremony.”
Most of NJIT’s morning class-goers can catch the ROTC cadets running drills by the campus green like clockwork throughout the week, but there’s a lot more to what Felice and about 60 others in campus’s detachment are doing as future aerospace professionals, from their academics and traveling to bases around the country for their training, to being invited to march in NYC Veteran’s Day Parade. As for Felice, it’s also meant balancing cadet life with her mechanical engineering studies as an Albert Dorman Honors College scholar.
“Along with our academic studies at NJIT, we are learning everything you need to enter active duty in the Air Force, from the military customs and courtesies, leadership training and assessments, to specifics about our national security strategy and all the components involved, which is much more complex.”
Felice has risen to the top of her class, and even earned national recognition along the way from AFROTC headquarters in Maxwell, AL, which annually awards top cadets from 145 detachments with more than 1,100 associated cross-town universities.
Starting in the summer of 2019, Felice began adding to a list of medals and ribbons that now decorate her formal uniform — ranking in the top third of over 400 cadets at a nationwide leadership evaluation, as well as winning a Reserve Officers’ Association Award, American Veteran’s Association Award, AFROTC Meritorious Service Award, U.S. Daughters of the War of 1812 Award, and many others.
By spring of 2020, in her junior year, Felice was hand-picked to run the entire cadet wing at NJIT where she led the operations of a detachment. Felice says the role is stressful enough, but she also got an unexpected crash course in crisis leadership last March.
“Being Wing Commander is extremely difficult, as we are in charge of planning all training operations for the entire semester. Then of course, COVID hit and we had to go fully remote in March 2020, which was unprecedented for ROTC.
“We had to come up with a plan for efficient virtual training and keep motivation high during such hard times. The experience was worth it, despite the stress and COVID changing our plans, and it helped me develop myself as a leader and prepare even further for active duty.”
Felice is taking her experiences with her when she touches down at her next destination, undergraduate pilot training at Columbus Air Force Base. For the next two years, she says she’ll learn everything from the basics of flight to how to use a specific airframe strategically in missions to ensure national security.
“Looking back, I am so grateful for everything I’ve experienced at NJIT and in ROTC. I’ve met so many incredible people along the way and achieved such great things I never considered or thought I could do,” Felice said.
“I have countless memories and zero regrets, and as much as it’s painful and scary to leave the place I’ve called home these past four years, I am so excited for what comes next. I’m really looking forward to serving my country, traveling to new places, gaining more experiences and meeting so many more amazing people in my future.”
