We don't maintain / take on SOCS as reservists (unless that has changed) and ^that guy is going to have a better scope of what-is-what concerning the CSO route in your current duty status - crossing over into Active Duty will be a challenge regardless.
If communications is genuinely your interest, I'd advise against becoming the CSO tasked with Communications because it is only going to last for as long as you are tasked with said billet.
My partner / CSO communications type on my first team five years ago is now a team chief in a sister company. While CSOs can make excellent communicators, they support the role while relying on the 06xx to fill the gaps. Said 0372's effectiveness as Advisors or Subject Matter Experts in other core tasks are more valuable to the team & mission when a SOCS is performing his duties in the lineup.
SOCS (all types) go to teams because they bring irreplaceable expertise to an even-more necessary task. Gauging by your youth (rank wise) and under the assumption that you are an effective Marine, it is likely you'll land on a team. There has always been an "experience" wave of return deployers vs. first-timers. We don't have enough man power to get all the right guys into a perfect position to rotate.
You will likely fall-in with a company alongside the fellow pipeline graduates you've been seeing for the past nine months and from there, you'll be able to guess the most likely team candidates. Team candidates are either hand-picked as return deployers or evaluated as physically/morally fit and highly-capable in communications. If you fill either of those checkboxes, congrats, you'll get to a team.
Being worried about what you get to do unfortunately, is very common among SOCS in all fields. MARSOC is a place to get-in-where-you-fit-in and you'll find a lot of support guys working well beyond their field of expertise after some time around the block. The guys that bitch about being at Battalion rarely request for follow-on training besides a stupid insert-school or something highly irrelevant to the mission of our command. One formal language school in a useful language or proficiency in a niche skillset and rest assured, an ops chief will be pounding at the door to get your ass over to his company to take advantage of the fact that you just filled two or more red-line taskers (mandatory proficiency skillsets).
A technically & tactically proficient SOCS Communications guy who has language and other niche certifications that we offer "in house" under his belt will never just "sit at battalion." Some people genuinely do draw the shit stick but at no point is it all doom and gloom from there either. Your career will accelerate here; you'll be offered positions in elevated units or you'll damn near get whatever unit you want afterward depending on the monitor's feelings that day.
I asked for California, I received California. I asked for Reconnaissance, I received orders to 1st Reconnaissance...
BLUF: Yes you
can cross-over as a SOCS, but
not without A LOT of work.
@Hillclimb hinted to this process in his post. Our manpower will not allow any qualified & deployable SOCS to cross-over to the CSO route / A&S until they are on their last year of their tour with MARSOC. Rank and other shit is only a matter of what the recruiters have to say. I was slated for A&S 2-16 as a Staff Sergeant before I shattered my ankle the month before-hand. This required approval by the 0372 Monitor, my monitor, our Ops Chief (SOCS side) and medical plus vetting by my previous team commanders, operations chiefs / officers, etc. My performance track-record in the unit and having been at my final year / completing multiple deployments enabled this to happen. If your end state ever becomes A&S after-the-fact, consider this example as a picture painted for how to get there. Circumstances will always dictate.
I will not however, have another opportunity at this again due to TIG and other irrelevant information. My main point is that your career is what you make of it and so is your time here - if I could do it all over again, I absolutely would. There is more than enough "former MARSOC" types walking around to prove that I'm not the only one either.
