[QUOTE=Capt Brian;32327]If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all.[/QUOTE]
If everyone on the board followed this rule, posts would be down 75%. lol!
Capt.Brain,
I think you mean Native! And yes I am a native of south Florida, Where a large number of boaters (New England to Caribbean) were gullible enough to listen to this hype and enroll, only to find out later they were given bad advise. Now a huge portion of the yachting capital/community can’t [I][B]all[/B][/I] be wrong. As far as something nice to say. They got a nice building, good paint.
Fuck it… I’ll weigh in on this one. Nothing better to do tonight anyway. HAHAHAHAHA.
I took a few courses at MPT. RFPNW, ARPA (with radar renewal), BRM, and Flashing Light. The building was nice and the simulator was EPIC WIN! The instructors were very knowledgable and had a good attititude. They seemed to care about teaching you what you needed to know in the real world and were cool about pencil whipping the rest. It was expensive, but it is south florida after all and they cater to a lot of yachties so the price is kind of understandable. They did do a little sales pitch, but not so much for the classes I took. They seemed to pressure the yachties more. I enjoyed my stay at MPT and I would go back if the circumstances were right. I have recommended them to friends.
[I][QUOTE=Flyer69;32285]Does anyone know if there is a procedure to be able to challenge the examination for a course like this? I have been an EMT-Basic for 12 years, providing EMS care for my volunteer fire department. The EMT-B course was 125 hours with time in the ER and ride-along time on paramedic ambulances. Having to take this course would be a complete waste of time and money for me.[/QUOTE][/I]
See para. 4 of Enclosure 2 to NMC Policy Letter 9-99
[I][QUOTE=Shiphead;32318]MPT sucks! Worst bunch of money grubbing bastards ever to steal my money. All they do is try to scare us into signing up for more of their lame courses, and sucking my bank account dry. While scaring everybody into thinking if they don’t sign up NOW they’ll miss the boat. Things will get harder. I’m not making that mistake more than once.[/QUOTE][/I]
Don’t you have an association with a competing school that is also located in Florida (and other places)?
Ive heard great things about MPT. They are a little more expensive(sometimes alot more…) but Ive heard you really learn something while there. Most of my experience has been with an institution that rhymes with Pee Pool…might as well been self study. While Im glad to have the certificates, Im a bit jaded at the whole process.
I went to that same course and learned less usefull info than taking a Red Cross first aid course. My instructor had never been on a supply boat, let alone understand the unique medical emergencies that may occur.
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Man I’m scheduled to take that course the week after next at Fletcher and was really looking forward to it. Guess I will be doing some reading ahead while in class because I get bored if I have to read along.
Now you know why public school teachers are disgusted with having to “teach to the test” to look good in the national standars test they have to work with.
On the other hand, it would be impossible for a number of us to knock off these classes if we had to take a longer class that was 4 or 5 times as expen$ive. If you feel you can’t get that much out of the classroom, then you need to study more on your own, or spend the time and money to go elsewhere.
[QUOTE=rigdvr;32605]
Im a bit jaded at the whole process.[/QUOTE]
Ya I fall into this category as well…I am only half way through the required courses at this point but with only a few exceptions, I feel I have spent a bunch a money on non sense…I think the Basic Ship Handling Course at PMI ,was actually the best course to date…
[QUOTE=water;33367]Now you know why public school teachers are disgusted with having to “teach to the test” to look good in the national standars test they have to work with…[/QUOTE]
The Coast Guard doesn’t require schools to “teach to the test.” When we started approving shiphandling courses for STCW I’d obtained permissions from schools to use any of their questions on our exams in the hopes of adding some new, relevant questions to the exams. I was badly disappointed to find most didn’t write new questoions, they used the ones from the Coast Guard pool. To make it worse, some schools will respond to student complaints by saying “we know the questions are bad, but the Coast Guard makes us use them.” Unfortunately some schools elect to take the quick, easy way to developing a course (copy from the IMO model course syllabus and add in a few questions from the Coast Guard exams) vice having an effective instruction design process.
I find it interesting that many of the bad experiences with courses are being blamed on the Coast Guard and not the school itself. If an instructor is bad and can’t teach, maybe the school thgat hired them shares some fault.
as jdcavo wrote: “many of the bad experiences with courses are being blamed on the Coast Guard and not the school itself. If an instructor is bad and can’t teach, maybe the school that hired them shares some fault”
which logically leads to spending your hard earned money at a school : 1. with a good reputation, and 2. with good professors. ergo, see my posts on MITAGS.
fair winds,
[QUOTE=jdcavo;33421]Unfortunately some schools elect to take the quick, easy way to developing a course (copy from the IMO model course syllabus and add in a few questions from the Coast Guard exams) vice having an effective instruction design process.
[/QUOTE]
Wait a minute … as a former course developer at a large not for profit maritime educational facility I take issue with that statement. The underlying concern in all new courses and modifications to existing courses was obtaining USCG approval. That meant we had to follow the model course outlines. There is (or was) no one in the CG who seemed capable of understanding the basic material much less comprehending different ways of teaching it. I will never forget being denied teaching approval for steam engineering on the basis of having “no experience in that mode of propulsion” despite holding an unlimited chief steam license. That pretty much sums up the general level of oversight we had to deal with. It was like we had to develop course for approval, not for content or value, even when it was patently obvious that the students could be much better served.
And as far as sharing test questions with the CG, the general feeling was one of being “used” by people, who did not know what they were doing or approving, as a means to acquire information they should have brought to the table. It is not easy to write a course and it takes time (money) to generate questions. To have those questions and other course materials turned over to other institutions as examples put a damper on how much we were willing to provide. It was difficult to look at the CG as a “partner” in training and education.
Steamer, that is exactly how I have felt during some of these classes and I think you are right on the money…I am not blaming anyone or bashing the CG, I just think there are better ways to teach students and prepare them for the real world rather than getting by with teaching to a test or just covering the basics as a minimum standard…
Richard makes a good point as well, quality education is what we are after…
[I][QUOTE=Steamer;33429]…I will never forget being denied teaching approval for steam engineering on the basis of having “no experience in that mode of propulsion” [/QUOTE][/I]
It’s not an outrageous statement, it’s possible to get a chief engineer steam license without ever working on a steam vessel, see 46 CFR 11.502(b)(4). All you needed to do was follow up with a description of your experience.
[I][QUOTE=Steamer;33429]And as far as sharing test questions with the CG… To have those questions and other course materials turned over to other institutions as examples put a damper on how much we were willing to provide. It was difficult to look at the CG as a “partner” in training and education.[/QUOTE][/I]
We asked. If you objected, you could have declined to give us permission. No one did, and no one expressed objection to the request. Many gave us permission, the rest did not respond.
the “us versus them mentality” (also known as a zero sum game) generally benefits neither party in the long term. altrusitic behavior, which has its roots deep in our ancestral human history, is the best course in strategic planning.
if unsure of above, or you want to know more, research “game theory” or even the “prisoner’s dilemma”.
I am weighing real late on this discussion.
Here is the real problem with a lot of training schools. Many of them are run by clowns not educators. Their focus is on marketing and making money not education. They use gimics like free accommodations and food, etc., or guaranteed passing, and the mariner falls for it hook, line and sinker. These clown schools, hire mariners who can be approved by the NMC for the course they are hired to teach, which does not equate to them being able to instruct. These bad instructors are the school’s fault for not having a professional instructor training program our monitoring instructor performance. Again this goes back to these school not really being educators, but clowns. But even clowns can get courses approved by the USCG.
My experience with mariners when they inquire about training they are concerned usually with 3 things; price, scheduled dates and passing rate. I many cases I know mariners pick schools based on price and passing rate, then are unhappy when they realize they picked a clown school.
The other problem has been a real lack of oversight of training schools by the USCG. This has allowed many schools to do pretty much what they want as far as teaching their test, not providing real or meaningful instruction, in other words just being a certificate mill. We just had an official visit from the Coast Guard earlier this month, the first in five years.
I have been in the maritime training industry for 15 years. We spend hundreds of hours developing professional courses, hire instructors and train them to present the curriculum. Though we don’t waiver from our professional standards, the NMC approves our courses based pretty much on the exam questions. I’m reasonably sure they don’t review the course content except to ensure the course includes enough hours. We invest in our courses both materially and monetarily for the benefit of the mariner, but unfortunately we have to compete against schools that don’t.
[QUOTE=richard8000milesaway;33451]the “us versus them mentality” (also known as a zero sum game) generally benefits neither party in the long term. altrusitic behavior, which has its roots deep in our ancestral human history, is the best course in strategic planning.
if unsure of above, or you want to know more, research “game theory” or even the “prisoner’s dilemma”.[/QUOTE]
I never realized how deep this forum could get…Where general philosophy ,physcology and bits and pieces of Hemingway and Sun Tzu would become relevant…God I love this place…
[QUOTE=jdcavo;33449]
It’s not an outrageous statement, it’s possible to get a chief engineer steam license without ever working on a steam vessel, see 46 CFR 11.502(b)(4). All you needed to do was follow up with a description of your experience.
[/QUOTE]
Oh, you mean a description like was in the documentation supporting the application and which listed the years of service for each approval requested in that letter? It’s a shame that all those discharges in my license file were considered inadequate? I think I understand now, thanks.
Oh, and how could I have forgotten … I already held an approval for a different school where I taught the steam engineering course when not sailing on steamships. Which information, by the way, was referenced in the first application for approval. After pointing out just how much information they already had which no one in whatever little cubbyhole handles that sort of thing ever bothered to cross check, an approval letter was issued, without comment or apology for the extra work and problems their incompetence created.
This is just another example of the sort of thing that happens every day at the NMC. This is why the CG has lost the respect of many if not the majority of working mariners. The bureaucrats who shuffle our papers around are guaranteed lifelong employment from uniformed service to civil service and have no idea of what it is like to rely on people like themselves for “permission” to make a living. they make the same pay even if a renewal or upgrade takes a year to process. Their pay doesn’t stop because they lose a document or can’t understand what one means.
I guess it was the “all you needed to do was follow up …” statement and attitude that pushed my button. I think all the CG needs to do is scrap the whole system and start from fresh with new people who know what a license is, what a ship is, and what it’s like to have your career hanging on a piece of paper that means nothing but more work to the people running the system today. That’s all you need to do.
generally the scuttlebutt knows which schools are the “certificate mills” and which schools are actual training centers, just like the old days when village rumors about who drinks too much, beats their wife, or has odd sexual habits was generally right on the mark.
ergo, lets do an online survey - anonymous of course- here on gcaptain, which lists all maritime training centers here in north america (even the smallest ones) and find out what the “village mentality” is for each one.