Consider GLMA. Average age of student is 27. When I graduated, the class size was around 50. We had two guys in their 50’s, two guys in their 40’s, and a handful of guys in their 30’s. To be a 22 year old graduate there is a bit of a rarity.
In addition, you take all your Gen Ed classes st the local community college. It seemed to me that they really cared and had many resources for math/English challenged individuals. There was a math lab that always had a tutor available, as well as an English tutor who would read any paper and offer guidance. To be honest, the only people the failed the Gen Ed’s were usually people who stopped caring.
Brjones - True school ultimately doesn’t matter. However given I get to go for free and these schools aren’t Harvard I may as well find the one that suites me best and provides the best education.
Johnny.Dollar - While I do plan to at least take the initial FE exam and hopefully follow up with a PE. If things come down to me working shoreside I would likely return to being a squirrel.
Navy2MSC - Community college for a semester is the route I’m likely going to go. Just to re-familiarize myself with material.
Since you are a veteran, you should definitely consider SUNY Maritime. It is recognized as a leading veteran educational institution in the United States. It ensures veteran success in all aspects of scholarship and in their attainment of career employment.
Their Office of Veteran and Military Affairs ensures the veteran receives expedited and expert council during the admission process, financial aid benefit adjudication, registration, matriculation, graduation and job placement.
You should contact the below as he will be able to give you better advice than the gCaptain forums:
Bob Wolf, associate director of veteran and military affairs
(718) 409-2258 rwolf@sunymaritime.edu
The Marine Engineering program at SUNY is ABET accredited and has NMC approval for a 3 A/E license. If he were seeking a EIT/FE license, why would he be interested in attending a SMA?!?
It is pretty badly organized. Trust me, I know, I was one of the webmasters back in ‘99 and it took forever to straighten it out then. Since then with all the changes it went through it’s awful again now. But to answer your question, TMA is part of Texas A&M University -College Station and thus has the same accreditation as the main campus.
Good and bad from any school, but Maine guys have been consistently good. Out of the top 5 Engineers I’ve worked with 2 were Maine, 1 Hawsepiper, 2 King’s Point.
As a guy that started the hawsepipe at 35, go to an academy. I don’t regret going hawspipe after attending Seattle Maritime, and it fit my situation, but much easier and faster to go to an academy. Don’t know your situation so won’t comment beyond what worked for me.
Now all the STCW Classes and assessments are required for you to get your OICEW. Pay on your own ($10,000plus and like 3 months of school if you can fit it into your off time. Or you can get them at school.
You want to be an engineer? Might want to reconsider the marine engineer route. There has and always will be a demand for engineers who have passed their FE [formerly EIT] and working towards their PE but not necessarily on ships. I honestly do not see a big demand on the horizon for marine engineers from the USA to work on ships. Companies can find very well educated marine engineers from other countries to work for the same or less without all the hassle tax wise etc. The US fleet is disappearing and with US companies adopting globalization the Jones Act protections are on their way out sooner rather than later. Finding shipboard work will be increasingly difficult for US grads and the pay is not much if any better than that of a shore-side engineering job with your FE behind you.
If you want to be an engineer go to an engineering school and take your FE your senior year. I know of a few PEs that graduated from a US maritime school and I remember them because it rarely happens.I know lots of PEs that went to non-maritime engineering schools. I also know lots of US marine engineers not working on ships because they can’t find a decent paying job.
Are you really that dense? Not everyone that thinks they’re going to like sailing does, and not everyone that piles sailing is able to continue doing it for an entire career. It’s always beneficial to have every credential possible, if he CAN get his PE he definitely should
I agree 100%. My body has some miles on it and while I do like sailing the prospect of doing it forever is a somewhat daunting one. Never hurts to have an exit strategy.
Are you really that dense? SMA marine engineering curriculums are based around covering the requirements to obtain a 3rd assistant engineer license, Bachelor of Engineering and a SSO/Navy/USCG/Marine commission. Preparing engineering cadets to take the FE/EIT exam is an afterthought at best after covering the SMA’s primary mission. You and those making comments about the pass rate on the FE/EIT exam as a reflection on the quality of instruction of a SMA marine engineering program is laughable. A SMA MARINE engineering program isn’t designed to prepare students for that exam regardless of gcaptain posters perceived level of exam difficulty.
The 3AE pass rate should be the more concerning topic, and the graduation rate. The FE exam is definitely an afterthought, only the most motivate students are gonna be concerned with passing it and adding that to their resume.
For a student to be eligible to take the FE exam, the degree must be ABET accredited in one of the eligible engineering disciplines. Therefore, the student must have taken classes that cover all the knowledge that is in the ABET curriculum. If a student gets an ABET engineering degree, from ANY school (including a SMA), he/she should have the toolbox upon graduation to easily pass the FE exam.
Students at state maritime academies may choose a degree path that awards a 3rd A/E license upon graduation but does NOT grant an ABET engineering degree. These students would obviously not have the toolbox to pass the FE exam (and unlikely be able to obtain a PE license), but this is moot because said student would not be eligible to sit for the FE exam anyway.
Being both a good marine USCG licensed engineer and a good “paper engineer” (ME, EE, etc) is entirely feasible.
Being a requisite to take an exam is a lot different than preparing a student to take that exam. As LIDormer already stated, a SMA Marine Engineering program should be judged on the pass rate on the 3 A/E exam. SMA Marine Engineering programs focus on preparing cadets for that test at the culmination of their studies (as they should).
One can get a USCG 3rd A/E license from a SMA without taking an ABET engineering curriculum. Unless things have change, one can get a marine ops degree at SUNY and get a 3rd A/E license.
If a student chooses to also take an ABET engineering degree and get a BS (or BE, at SUNY), then they most definitely should be prepared for the FE exam. Otherwise, the program is a complete failure. How can I say this? Because quite a few of the students in the ABET engineering curriculum are NOT doing the USCG 3rd A/E license track.
SUNY WILL NOT issue a Bachelor of Engineering degree to Marine Engineering majors or a Bachelor of Science to Marine Operations majors until they either pass the 3 A/E exam, 3/M exam or get a medical deferral from MARAD. The students you refer to that are in a ABET engineering curriculum without pursuing a USCG license CANNOT possibly be a Marine Engineering or Marine Operations major like you mention in your previous posts.
As a marine engineer with a chiefs license, I can’t count how many times a shoreside company has contacted me. I would stay with marine engineering. Trust me, that license is worth a lot shoreside too. Also check with your states requirement on getting the EIT some allow it with ABET and some use work experience
I have never met one person who did’t make a commercial or training cruise from A&M who met the prerequisites. You will see a LOT of whining from those who don’t meet the requirements, and maybe where the rumors come from.