I'm here to answer your unanswered ???s'

KPMOM
Tue, 04 Mar 2008 14:44:11 +0000

DisgruntledAlumn, you have quite a negative outlook on your experience at KP. I can well understand your frustration at the inequity of a fellow taking 6-7 years to get through and getting all the glory. It leaves you and many others seeing it as unfair. You obviously have some other issues that you are looking at to prove your negative points.

Let’s look at the other side for a minute. Are you having a terrible time struggling to make ends meet as you spend many years paying off $100,000 worth of school loans? You question the fellow that you felt didn’t have high integrity. You graduated 3 1/2 years ago from KP and yet you are working a shoreside job. Did you fulfill your 5 year obligation to the government? Perhaps you are doing that now, but maybe not.

After 3 1/2 years you have set yourself up as an expert to complain about the academy for whatever bad things happened to you. That is hardly enough time to get your feet on the graduate side of the fence. I can point out to you lots of Captains of ships, career mariners, and other careers who are so happy they graduated from KP. My husband said it was the making of himself in developing a disciplined life. He has been sailing and in the maritime world since he graduated. My son graduated a couple years before you and is really happy that he went to KP. We have worked with KP students for over 30 years. While they are at KP it’s tough, but almost to a person they are glad they graduated from the academy. I would say you are one of the few exceptions to the rule, and I’m sorry for that. I don’t know if you’ve just had a bad luck situation, or whether you tend to look at the negative side of things

Is KP perfect? Absolutely not, and neither is any other school. Are there things that should be changed, absolutely, but that is the same as other places.

For a person to set themselves up as an expert, they should be farther along than you are, to see the benefits and the assets of your education. It seems to me that you have had some bad experiences and have difficulty getting beyond those to see the big picture.

“Being happy doesn’t mean everything’s perfect. It means you decide to see beyond the imperfections.”