I may have said that The Maritime College is best place on Earth but that doesn’t stop it from being awful.
Located in Throgs Neck, Bronx. The Maritime college is located at Fort Schuyler. You read correctly, I go to school in a fort (some linkage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Schuyler). When the school was much smaller the Cadets used to live the Fort as well. Now it houses classrooms and our library but enough of the Fort.
Although this place really isn’t that awful, it is perceived as such when compared to your normal everyday college. This place, despite how much it may have changed since its birth in 1874 (A very good year I might add) is still an academy of sorts.
Like most if not every academy, we have cadets in uniform in some sort of organization. Here it is known as the Regiment of Cadets. Our uniform is Khaki the sea is our life. This glorious assemblage of individuals has come together to learn how to work aboard merchant vessels and join together and experience a different kind of college.
This marvelous hell that I call home has it’s own ship; the Training Ship Empire State Six, also know as TSES6 and has the callsign KiloKiloFoxtrotWhiskey (KKFW). This ship is the main reason that college exists. Every summer the Regiment of Cadets boards the ship and sails across the Atlantic to various European ports but to clarify the Cadets themselves are the ones that are on the helm and down in the engine room. Of course there are Captains, Mates, and Engineers there but they are there just in case defecation hits the oscillation (which at least once a summer it does).
Although an academy with the Regiment of Cadets, Maritime also has a “civilian” program for those students who are not interested in shipping out and not interested in wearing uniforms and following rules.
So why does this place suck so much? If you asked my classmates many if not most would reply “The Regiment is out to get us”. The regiment to them being the Officers that advise and supervise the Regiment. The truth of the matter is that the Regiment is not the Officers but the Cadets. The Officers however may have too much influence on the Regiment and are reluctant to let it run itself. Sure it would be absolute utter chaos for awhile but eventually a clear order would work itself out.
The culture here is one that the Cadets are always being oppressed and being slighted by the system. You always hear, “it was better back in the day why would they change that”. The answer for changing, this place is actually failing and some of the changes are attempts to increase retention rates (I think it is approximately half of a freshman class ends up graduating from here). This doesn’t mean all changes are for retention rates. Some might be to better control the student body or just for someone to make a name for themselves.
I’m probably ranting and would like to apologize. Despite the constant bitching I hear here I wouldn’t trade it for anything. This is my family. The Regiment is something you rarely find somewhere else; a bunch of misfits, oddballs, whack jobs that may have countless grudges with each other will try their best to help a fellow shipmate out i.e. bar fights, arguments with locals, passing classes, warning each other of Officers locations that day.
My only advice to my classmates/shipmates is to stop complaining about all the little things and realize all the things they have going for them. Campus may be boring, rules may be strict but its not the worst place ever nor the most hardcore academy. If anything it’s an inconvenience at times but lets be serious. You chose to come here and you still choose to stay here. Clearly something is keeping you here more than the license program. It’s the family and tradition this school has. It’s a rare thing to find a college that is also a family albeit highly dysfunctional but a family nonetheless.
The screw will keep turning but I’ll be there with the Regiment, one hand united against it.
The Unyielding Tide 