How many maritime training universities outside of the USA make their students wear silly uniforms and march around playing .mil life? I don’t know the exact number, but of all the foreign officers I’ve met (which is a large number), not a single one marched around and got yelled at.
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My wife’s nephew went to (South) Korea’s Maritime Academy. The school had a regimental system, and they were required to wear said uniforms.
As far as the State schools here in the US go, as @jdcavo has said numerous times in a number of different discussions when this came up; A regimental system is required (per CFR) to get the federal assistance they are receiving.
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I’ve had the exact opposite experience, oddly enough
Where did Korea get all it’s tech and rules from? Big brother USA.
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I really don’t care what foreign officers you say you met but they probably are not from S. Korea, the Philippines, or Ukrainians from Odessa. I got tired looking up schools around the world and seeing images of their cadets in uniform. Yes, there are a number schools where a regimental system is not required. But to infer those that require it are a small minority is very mistaken.
I would say most of them do. It’s really not that big of a deal… they all (at least the US schools) had that system in place since day one, why is it suddenly deemed obsolete and silly?
Looking around at the schools in europe, most of them wear cadet uniforms, though they tend to look like like they’re going to crew a super yacht then a WWII Liberty ship. Many aviation programs similarly require you to wear a uniform.
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Nursing schools make you wear scrubs too. It makes sense to wear a uniform when one may be expected.
But the problem here is they are expecting the non licensed business students and and science students to do the same things the marine engineers and Deckies are Doing. They’d be able to attract more students and stay afloat if only the folks who needed to be in the corps were in the corps. When parents complain the food sucks, and I say, The food sucks in the industry too sometimes, they respond, My kid is a business student, I say, fair enough.
When is a busines student really going to need a boiler suits during a career at Starbucks. /s
U.S. maritime academies have non-license students, sometimes called “day students.” (at least they were called that in the last ice age when I was a cadet). They don’t wear uniforms and are not in the “regiment.” The biggest examples are Texas Maritime (part of Texas A&M) and Great Lakes Maritime (part of Northern Michigan College), at these schools, the academy cadets are a small part of the overall enrollment of the college. At others, including SUNY and Maine, they may be a minority of the undergraduate enrollment, but still do not wear uniforms and are not part of the regiment of cadets.
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Yes, that is the problem here. CSU says the school needs to expand, there are physical constraints on the deck and engine programs, so they are adding other majors. It appears these other majors are still in the corps by design and only have the option of living on campus. Why anyone would do this when they could go to any other CSU for the same degree, I don’t know, and neither do perspective students, hence the recruiting troubles.
The do/did at Mass. All of the non-license majors wore the same uniform, went to morning formation, endured the same general regimental program.
At SUNY you have:
License Program Cadets (undergrad/grad students)
Non-License Regimental Cadets (optional)
Traditional (non-license or “civilian”) students/grad students
If ya want a license, ya gotta play the regimental game. It ain’t hard and unfortunately for the whiners, it isn’t optional. Heck, even firemen wear uniforms with rank insignia and march in parades and display military customs and courtesies.
So does the Salvation Army. And the Surgeon General wears an admiral’s uniform.
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The Public Health Service is one of the uniformed services. He/She may not have a choice.
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I am familiar with 10 U.S.C. 101(a)(5).
It’s not just the physical constraints, money plays a part. When I was there I was told by an admin that CMA gets a dollar amount from the state per student. The dollar amount was the same regardless of major and that was why they were growing the business and global studies majors; it’s cheaper to educate a major that only requires a desk which results in more money for the school. I do recall a lawsuit between a GS student and the school over Saturday duty due to demerits but I don’t recall what the end result of that was. I personally wouldn’t recommend the school for someone unless they were looking for a license or they were really certain they wanted to go into the maritime industry. I recall the first batch of Global Studies students graduating and not being able to find jobs. Not sure if that has improved or not.
There were lots of small changes while I was there. The mess deck used to be open for study into the evening with Sr’s standing watch, we used to clean on the ship in the evenings, things like that.
We did formation a few times a week, wore uniforms and stood watches but none of the other BS I hear about at the other schools with yelling and screaming, PT, squaring corners, etc. I’m not saying that stuff doesn’t have its place, but as an older student it would have been a lot of nonsense for me.
Thanks for the reminder of saturday “Extra duty”. I spent quite a few Saturdays in dungarees working mostly in the boathouse. I enjoyed it so not really a punishment. Everything turned out fine in the end.
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And the girl scouts.
And McDonalds
This was an issue back in 2019 when I left, nice to see they never fixed anything. They should have segregated the majors into licensed and unlicensed tracks years ago and split the corps based on those lines. I remember when I first went in they had that whole presentation posted everywhere about how they were going to expand the campus, add new housing and revamp the infrastructure. Bet that didn’t go anywhere either.
Someone in this thread keeps mentioning the uniforms and I think that touches on one of the oldest problems with CMA, they have horrible PR and advertising. As far back as 2014, there’s been a trend that 30-50% of the entire incoming freshmen class drops out before the end of the first year because they don’t understand what they’re getting themselves into. They seem to think it’s going to be a regular CSU school with maritime stuff attached. Then they realized its a maritime academy with CSU stuff attached and jump ship for a regular CSU.