Hello everyone. I finished undergrad several years ago and want to change career paths. If I get accepted, I’m leaning towards A&M Galveston due to cost and being closer to home. Because it has been a while since being in school, I am a little hesitant. My understanding of the program so far is it’s ~2 years. Above the age of 25(I am) is more lenient and don’t have to join the cadets. There are pre-req classes you have to take but can offset those by taking one particular business class and there is a structure of mandatory classes you have to take.
- Can anyone tell me the difficulty of the course work?
- What math should I brush up on? (Not my strongest subject)
- What is the day-to-day of a grad student doing the license option on top of the course work?
- If anyone has done the program, specifically business and logistics, what was your experience? What did you get out of it? What would you change or wish you could have gotten more of? Thanks
I don’t have answers for a lot of those, but I can at least help somewhat. I’m 25 and just got accepted to TAMUG as a transfer student. I will have completed 90% of my basics before I start this fall.
- Age doesn’t matter, you still have to be apart of the Corps of Cadets. You’ll wear the uniform, show up to formations, PT, etc.. There is nothing that excludes you from this if you’re a marine transportation or marine engineering major. The only thing we get as being 25+ is the ability to live off campus, which is what I’ll be doing since I’ve lived 30 mins from the school my whole life. Don’t get me to lying to you on this but; being able to live off campus also means we only have to show up for morning formation and PT on Wednesdays. This rule may have changed recently, I’ve heard something about that. But if it’s still the same, this should be true (I sure hope so!!!)
-If you’re doing the deck/marine transport degree, the only two math classes are business mathematics and business calculus. I don’t know if you’ll need those for a graduate student. I aced both of those with an A+ in each, but math is my strongest subject.. Even then, they weren’t that bad.
I don’t have much else to give you as I’m a brand new cadet who just applied for his TWIC card today, getting the passport done tomorrow, and ordering uniforms next week.
Change careers on shore. Most guys out here look for a way out. Not to discourage you…but it’s the reality.
I read that graduate students have to play soldier once a week. Supposedly its a more relaxed group compared to undergrad but I’m not too sure.
The pre-req are a few classes for grad students. I have most of them from my undergrad days but according to the website, you can take MARA 689 or something along those lines to supplement the 5 or so required courses.
I’m don’t know much about the deck/transport degree. The masters program I am looking at is the Masters of Maritime Business Administration and Logistics w/ LO so that would be my ‘degree’. Best of luck to you!
Thanks for the input. I have worked in three different industries, crane, trucking, and oilfield. Every single person I have met in all three industries have said they are looking for a way out. It never happens. I would rather have money and be miserable than be miserable and have no money. Plus the work schedule in maritime is similar to my hitches in the oilfield, longer, but the idea is the same. As long as I am good with my money, which history has shown that I don’t blow it all, I plan on being seaside for a few years then I’ll re-assess and see which way the wind directs me.
Got ya, yeah I don’t know anything about the business degree with license option. I still don’t quite understand how you get a 3M license without doing the marine transportation degree. Either way, hope it all works out for you. Maybe I’ll see you there.
As far as playing solider once a week, I know that’s true for veterans in Victor company. But I sure hope that also applies to 25+ and grad students, because I want to deal with the military bs as little as possible. I can have that answer posted on here shortly after I apply for living off campus this week.
You are still going to have to get through all your courses that are USCG/STCW required (will get you ready for the license exam as well. Alot of that will be pretty basic but you do need your celestial nav to get your license for oceans) plus some that you just need re: Naval Arc (but this is stability). Really, as far a math skills go - please bone up on your algebra - seriously, that’s as complicated as it gets but in my experience there were a whole lot of students that did not know algebra and really really struggled with stability and cel nav (and terrestrial nav too).
Yeah I heard from a previous cadet that celestial, stability, and terrestrial were the classes students had the most trouble in. As well as GDMSS
I already have an undergrad degree. Because I am switching careers, I can study for my masters and do the license option to get into the maritime industry.
Let me know about V co and what you figure out. Hopefully I will see you there next semester
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I have to brush up on many things since it has been over a decade since last using typical school math. Thanks for the heads up. I’m going to watch on videos and get ahead of it, mostly because I am very excited about learning this stuff.
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Yeah for sure! I’ll keep you posted on that. I’m going to be applying for off campus living this week so I should have some kind of answer soon.
Are you starting this fall?
I was just looking at places to live on the island. Expensive and unique is how I’ll phrase it but it’s better than being around youngsters and all their non-sense I don’t have time for. But yes! Keep me in the loop
I haven’t applied yet. I think applications for the Spring opens in August. I’m hoping applying day one will give me a better chance at getting accepted
That’s cool just don’t be miserable on board and ruin it for everyone else.
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It’s going to be alot about extrapolation (did I get that right?) so cross multiplication. also alot manipulating formulas with constants and stuff to find a value (some fairly complicated formulas at times re: celestial and stability). All this is at a level of high school algebra, although it’s been a nice, long, long, long time since I was in high school lol.
We all need those professional malcontents to put things in to perspective lol!
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