Urban Dictionary Definition

Maritime Academy
1

Located underneath the Throgs Neck Bridge, the college is the forgotten step-child of the SUNY system. A quasi-military school, students participate in the Regiment of cadets when convenient which involves:
A)wearing US Naval uniforms which are either grossly over or undersized,
B)waking-up at the crack of dawn to stand in some sort of formation in order to bitch about waking up early,
C)Collecting stacks of pink paper or if one is so lucky a few gold pieces,
D)Spending countless hours of the week scheming, running away from, or buying one’s way out of receiving pinks or the beloved golds.

Students major in either a USCG Deck Officer License program that is disguised as a Business degree to give it legitimacy or bumble-F’d Engineering degree that loosely incorporates a USCG Engine License program. Students come from a vast array of places, 95% residing in Long Island and the other 5% being “Upstaters” from lower Westchester and “Southerners” from the far-reaches of Maryland and Virginia. The proper way to ask where someone is from is “North-shore or South-shore?”

The college is extremely ethnically diverse with 99.9% of the population being white and of either Irish or Italian descent. The rest is made of a wonderful array of racial minorities who are subsequently divided into the many social clicks as the “token.”

There is a male to female ratio about 15 to 1, but don’t worry there guys you don’t want to be going near any of these referred to losely as women for fear of being crushed, or eaten.

The type of student who attends MARITIME typically:
A)Couldn’t get into Kings Point or Annapolis,
B)Was disenrolled from Kings Point or Annapolis,
C)Has been to several colleges and views this as the “last option”,
D)Could stay awake long enough to fill out the 20minute application or make a 5minute phone call.

The social-life at the college represents something of a mix between a low-security prison and shitty high-school party. After the class-day, cadets un-wind by staring at their room’s wall, breaking things, sneaking a few coveted “Tall Boys” on campus only to be caught roughly 5minutes later, or if truly lucky go out to one of the Bronx’s fine bars where cadets will be ridiculed or mauled before finishing their first beer.

The true allure to the college is the “anticipated” (ie. dreaded) SUMMER SEA TERM or the acronym since this is quasi-military school “SST.” Eight Hundred or so cadets, retarded/stereotypical minority cook-staff, and distrungtled officers and crew board the 50-year-old death-trap otherwise known as the Empire State for two months to “sail the world” in order to live out everyone’s childhood fantasies living aboard 1800s slave ship. Cadets spend the days at sea working to keep the ship from sinking or blowing up, looking at porn, and doing things in the holds that on land might be perceived as homosexual. Every 10 days or so Cadets are rewarded for their hard work with a 3 day port stay, in which the Cadets will only be off the ship for roughly 3hours, just enough time to get drunk enough that they will not be able to get off the ship in the next port.

“Keeping the Screw Turning…”
-“Where do you go to school?”
-“Suny Maritime…”
-“Huh??? Whats that?”
-“Uh… its a quasi-military school where we get USCG licenses to be merchant mariners.”
-“Oh so you go to the Coast Guard Acedemy…”
-“No”
-“Oh I get it… so your like a marine?”
-“No”
-“So what is it?”
-“A shit-hole, where you get something called the screw all day”

From The Urban Dictionary

2

Who says kids today ure useless???

3

I’m sure whoever wrote that definition was quite upset that his brother got accepted to Maritime but he didn’t. Once the author gets out of jail, I’m sure he will enjoy much success as the Junior Assistant Overnight Shift French Fry Manager at his local McDonalds (unless, of course, his probation officer determines that the kids in McPlayland present too much of a temptation…)

Fatguy

4

D)Spending countless hours of the week scheming, running away from, or buying one’s way out of receiving pinks or the beloved golds.
so true

5

[QUOTE=Fatguy;15543]I’m sure whoever wrote that definition was quite upset that his brother got accepted to Maritime but he didn’t. Once the author gets out of jail, I’m sure he will enjoy much success as the Junior Assistant Overnight Shift French Fry Manager at his local McDonalds (unless, of course, his probation officer determines that the kids in McPlayland present too much of a temptation…)

Fatguy[/QUOTE]

Hey Fatguy,

Now that you’ve presumably been at Maritime for a semester, can you see that whoever wrote the definition was certainly not a jealous outsider but in fact a real cadet, living “the dream” ?

6

[quote=Needs a Shave;23780]Hey Fatguy,

Now that you’ve presumably been at Maritime for a semester, can you see that whoever wrote the definition was certainly not a jealous outsider but in fact a real cadet, living “the dream” ?[/quote]

No the first semester is “the dream” it’s after you go home over break and talk to your friends about how much fun they’re having at real college that you come back bitter and angry.

7

[QUOTE=CMA_Decky;23782]No the first semester is “the dream” it’s after you go home over break and talk to your friends about how much fun they’re having at real college that you come back bitter and angry.[/QUOTE]

Now-a-days there isn’t much of a reason to return angry considering the fact that it’s not nearly as hard to be a first year cadet as it was in the past. If you have a problem, no sweat. Just call your mom and she’ll have a chat with the admiral, and the school’s provost, and the dean of students, and the commandant of cadets, and maybe even your IDO’s. Don’t worry Maritime Academy Graduates of the future, your mom will bail your ass out of jail and plea bargain for you when you spill some oil or run aground because you couldn’t take a little constructive criticism or as many refer to it now, hazing, on the nose like a grown-up.

8

well put. ^^^ Hit the nail right on the head with that one.

9

I love it! Every single person who graduated from this fine school said “I had the hardest indoc, the next year it gets easier!” Just take that into account and you will be fine, Oh, we had no internet there when I was there. Suck it up, if you want it you will get through.

10

For the record, I’m not saying that my indoc or mug year were even mildly difficult at best, but these days instead of PT’ing and Drilling all day, they get to break after lunch and play intramural sports for the rest of the day. When the school year begins it’s a joke.

There used to be taps, deck chores in the morning, a good chow muster if you had been “bad”, and of course your room had to be in order. If it wasn’t, your shit would be turned upside down.

I remember putting my room back together night after night for months just because my socks or something like that were in the wrong spot. It seemed pointless and demeaning back then and of course it pissed you off, but that miserable time in a cadet’s life was supposed to be a lesson.

In order for a ship or any other water craft to function safely and properly there needs to be extreme attention to detail and the crew needs to be able to work as one. All those times when you thought to yourself “, this is bull-shit,” as you were on the deck pumping out 25 push-ups or running around the campus as a punishment for something that someone else had screwed up, you were being subjected to the worst that could be legally done to you because in real life, the punishment could be far worse than getting tired and sweaty.

This process was meant to weed out those who couldn’t or just wouldn’t be able to do whatever was to be expected of them in the real world. Now, by making things easier for the masses it puts more at risk then just a schools reputation. Sure, enrollment is up at SUNY and more students tend to stay which makes the school look profitable in the eyes of the state, but the old salts of the industry who graduated from the school look at these fledgling mariners as incomplete and in some cases, a liability.

I’m not saying that the first year at an academy is what necessarily defines one as a mariner, if you ask, many a hawsepiper will tell you we are all stupid, but it sets a foundation to built upon. The tallest structures in the world started at the ground and without a proper footing, they can not stand.

11

I still can not figure out if the US Merchant Marine is a fighting service or not. The extension to the Navy/CG and the reserve commitment that the mariners have to make, together with the disciplined schooling/training, seems to indicate so.

Yet they do not get to carry guns and shoot pirates.

Somehow stuck in limbo, neither a casual happy go lucky sailor nor a spittin’ blood and bullets fighter?

12

[QUOTE=Needs a Shave;23780]Hey Fatguy,

Now that you’ve presumably been at Maritime for a semester, can you see that whoever wrote the definition was certainly not a jealous outsider but in fact a real cadet, living “the dream” ?[/QUOTE]
Sorry I am slow in replying. Too busy getting straight A’s and making the most of my time here last semester too worry about how much it “sucks” at Maritime. Having been in the real world prior to coming here, I can tell you this much: if you make up your mind to be miserable, you’ll be miserable. If you make up your mind to be your best all the time despite your circumstances, your circumstances will never get the best of you. And, since nobody likes getting a sermon, “that’s all I have to say about that!”

13

[QUOTE=Fatguy;24971]Sorry I am slow in replying. Too busy getting straight A’s and making the most of my time here last semester too worry about how much it “sucks” at Maritime. Having been in the real world prior to coming here, I can tell you this much: if you make up your mind to be miserable, you’ll be miserable. If you make up your mind to be your best all the time despite your circumstances, your circumstances will never get the best of you. And, since nobody likes getting a sermon, “that’s all I have to say about that!”[/QUOTE]

No worries. I guess that many would say that I am a miserable kind of guy, but I prefer to view myself as a realist (real life does blow… to a point). I never did succumb to the “Maritime Sucks!” attitude, but I certainly can attest to the bull s*#@% that goes on there.

Straight A’s are admirable and I applaud you for your achievement. I was never that kind of student. My focus was always on just getting the hell out of that place so I could go back to being a productive member of society. One thing that I would change if I could, would be to do as many cadet internships/observers as humanly possible. There is an opportunity there to be taken advantage of and I advise anyone currently in school to do so. The job market is absolutely terrible right now and anything you have the opportunity to get signed off, ie PIC or TOAR, will be worth more than a perfect GPA, that is if you intend to ship.

Good luck “Forest”

14

I agree with you 150% about the cadet observer/internship opportunities, as well as getting as many PIC and other quals as possible. That’s why I am working so hard on the grades–when it comes time to get the good slots, I want my name to be the first on the list.

Best of luck to you!

Fatguy

15

Fatgguy I kinda was on the same path you are when I went to SUNY, I lived in the real world for along time before school workin as a commercial fisherman. So you just got to grin and bear it while some 18 year old highschool kid tells you how to do shit. The best way to get a good cadet spot is to get it on your own, call companies you want to sail with and set it up with them then submit that stuff to whomever deals with that stuff at SUNY.

16

Yeah–I pretty much figured that out the first week I was here. SUNY Maritime is definitely a “Do It Yourself” institution.

I’m just speculating, but I think that learning how to overcome bureaucratic hurdles, climb administrative mountains, jump through procedural hoops, work “outside the system”, and not take no for an answer is at least as important as learning how to navigate and stand watch.

“Old age and treachery will defeat youth and skill every time…”

Fatguy