After reviewing the profiles on the schools Mass, Suny, Texas, and Cal, Cal seems like the best place to be if you’re a female cadet. Can anyone concur with this/ have any advice or info for a prospective female cadet? Thanks!
You will be popular at all of them…
I can’t really speak about the other academies, I went to Great Lakes. I think they get around 60 incoming cadets per year, and about 5 are female on average. From a male prospective it seems like they were all pretty close and had each others back. Plus there’s a lot of older cadets at Great Lakes so you get the whole daughter/little sister treatment. Great Lakes shares a building with a culinary school, plus you take some gen ed classes at the community college. So there’s always lots of opportunities to make other female friends who are not in the same career path as you are. I think that’s important, things tend to get a little incestuous when all you do is hang around other sailors, gotta mix up the group dynamics at parties.
All in all, if my little sisters decided to go the Great Lakes Maritime Academy, I’d feel positive about that choice.
go to KP. its free.
Indeed. You will be more popular than you ever dreamed possible. The Belle of the Ball, if you will.
In my opinion the best one for you depends more on where you live then what gender you are.
Went to Texas a few years ago. Don’t think you would have a problem there. All the girls are accepted and treated as equals.
After doing a few cruises on the Golden Bear with cal I found it the same there as well.
Have sailed with gals from KP, Mass, Suny…and never heard anything different. As long as you pull you’re own weight, it doesn’t really matter whether you are a guy or gal. When others gotta take up your slack is when you’ll have problems…regardless of of gender.
At Texas there may be a dozen or so girls ehe you start…and maybe 4 you graduate with. Same ratio goes with guys.
I think the other posts highlight an important point. Wherever you go in the maritime industry, you will be a minority. That being said, at some point in your schooling chances are you will date another classmate. My advice is, don’t advertise this relationship, other guys will get jealous and will spread rumors about you. Keep things low key and professional.
Also, when shipping as a cadet, you make get one of two types of supervisors. You may get a supervisor who see’s you as a princess unwilling to get her hands dirty. I say prove them wrong and be a hard worker. The other type is a supervisor who will coddle a female due to crush/old fashion values/afraid of EEO complaint. This supervisor is almost worse because you won’t get the experience you need and it may cause resentment from the other crew members. But, if you remain professional, work hard, and strive to always do your best, you’ll do just fine at the academy and in the maritime industry in general.
let’s qualify that statement
if you look like this…
then you will rock any ground you tread upon however if you look like this…
then only God alone can save your VLCC assed soul. take my advice girlfriend…find your local Curves!
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It’s the 21st century. You will be accepted at all of them. Go to whatever is cheapest. Nobody gives a crap what academy you went to as long as you have a license
[QUOTE=brjones;168735]It’s the 21st century. You will be accepted at all of them. Go to whatever is cheapest. Nobody gives a crap what academy you went to as long as you have a license[/QUOTE]
Well, nobody will care where you got your license except on this forum. . . .
[QUOTE=brjones;168735]It’s the 21st century. You will be accepted at all of them. Go to whatever is cheapest. Nobody gives a crap what academy you went to as long as you have a license[/QUOTE]
This one right here, you may want to consider where you plan on working too. While the licenses are all the same each school seems to have different areas where their grads end up. I work East Coast and only know of 1 Cal Maritime grad and he works shoreside. I’m sure there’s more but there’s a lot more Mass and Maine grads around.
Think about where you are from and where you will fit in, and which school has the best networking where you think you want to live and work. Are you a city person, or a small town person? A warm weather or cold weather person? Would you prefer a school that is serious about the regiment (like SUNY) or with little or no regiment (like GLMA and CMA)? Are you going deck or engineering? Visit the academies and ask yourself where you would prefer to spend four years.
You only have to read this thread to see that the situation for a young women student seeking a maritime career is different than a young man’s.
For women the closer the male/female ratio on campus reflects the population in society as a whole the better the environment will be for women. A minimum population of about 15% is considered the threshold below which the environment will become adverse for women students.
In this case schools which are not geographically isolated would likely have a better environment for women but of course other factors are important as well.
You didn’t mention Maine Maritime but they have a lot of girls that go there. Not particularly many in a license major (just like all the academies) but they also have Marine Biology, Marine Science, and International Business and Logistics majors that have lots of female students.
Are you going to have a car with you? If not I wouldn’t recommend cal.
Whichever place you choose, try to join the core and get some kind of position right away, like section leader or something.
Core. . . .hehehehe. . . . core. . . . sigh. . . .
Again why the hell are there two threads on the same topic, at the same time?
Yes, I use this site from my phone as well. I can see you still haven’t mastered the art of remembering the correct amount of dots to use for ellipses…