Would you encourage your kid to attend a maritime academy?

Just retired almost 40 yrs at sea as a deck officer. It worked out for me. I neither encouraged or discouraged my 4 kids. Only one showed mild interest and took a tour of SUNY but chose another career ad did all my kids I had good times on ships mostly sailed with good men and raised my family with my career. However I don’t think its a career I would want for my kids in this day and age. Mariners today are regulated to death in an industry that piles on more and more regulations in every aspect of the job ,there is very little port time to enjoy and the there seems to be a shortage of good jobs compared to the amt. of people that get pumped out of the academies. Im glad i sailed when I did and don’t envy the new people just joining our industry now.

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I don’t know if I would recommend it to my kids as they are 4 & 6 unless they got a minor in something like business as a back up plan as I don’t see them having a full meaning fulll career as deckies. But I can see my youngest being a cut throat lawyer and her twin as an engineer. The oldest will be a therapist of some sort… she’s the peaceful one…

When they are in high school, we will have a long meaningful discussion like don’t major in art cause we will still be paying off Mom’s student loans…

I’d say go work for the govt while they still have a pension… do something for the greater good… I do navigation for the navy and work the maritime safety Watch for navareas 4&12

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I take a bit of the credit, but they are actually really good kids. Very little drama during their teens (other than their mother). . . I like to say that they are so much better behaved when I was their age. . but hell, they are much better behaved than I am now. . . .

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What is it with little girls and marine biology?

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my kids said they want to be in crime
So I asked in the public or private sector?

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I was the same way. I think its just because Jacques Cousteau was so sexy. But then Carl Sagan was, too, and astrophysics is less popular. Maybe its because dolphins are charismatic. But then my favorite marine biologist is the only person I know who has eaten a dolphin. Kids and horses, too: yet we don’t have a lot of them wanting to be large animal veterinarians: I guess James Harriot just doesn’t have the sex appeal. Maybe its one of those feminine mysteries that people go on about.

My sister wanted to be a vet until she took a class in animal husbandry in college. She changed her major to Electrical Engineering after that. She still likes horses though.

Sorry for the off topic detour.

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I ignored the old adage and volunteered to become a navy diver with visions of swimming through sunlit seas with brightly coloured coral. Forgot about it until months later on a cold January morning in Chatham dockyard,England.
After my test dives in basically raw sewage, the instructor sent me to the hospital with the instructions to tell them I had just completed a test dive. The hospital made me look like a pin cushion with the injections I received. The sunlit seas bit had to wait until I left the Navy.

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Ah haha haha… NO!

I will tell mine to go to med school

I will encourage my son to attend a maritime academy, engineering.

Maybe a stint in the CG or Airforce first.

A couple of my former chief mates are now pilots and I’ve met and worked with many pilots of all three coasts. In that case going deck makes more sense then for someone with no inside knowledge.