It's not college

Colleges & Universities United States Naval Academy (USNA)
1

<p>Last week I wrote about my thoughts about our kids not being
in college, but in the military.</p>

<p>I use a Google Beta program that sends all newspaper articles from
anywhere in the country with the Naval Academy in its story to my own
email address…</p>

<p>Behold - someone has stated it as concisely as only a USNA grad could!</p>

<p>Thanks Mr. Hendrickson! It is a helpful reminder.
:-)</p>

<p>May God Bless all our kids in their First Navy Assignment…which this
week is taking exams!</p>

<hr>

<hr>

<p>September 27, 2006</p>

<p>NORWALK, CT – It wasn’t a typical college fair at Academy Night
yesterday at Norwalk City Hall.</p>

<p>School banners may have been hung on tables and high school
upperclassmen may have milled around, collecting pamphlets and speaking
with the representatives of educational institutions. But instead of
schools like Harvard, Princeton or Yale, the banners advertised the Air
Force, Army, Coast Guard, Merchant Marines and Navy. And representatives
didn’t give sugarcoated descriptions of campus life.</p>

<p>“It is not a college. It is your first assignment in the U.S. Navy,”
said Paul Hendrickson, Darien resident and Naval Academy class of 1973.
“These people self-select, I don’t go out and recruit.”</p>

2

<p>With all due respect, my son picked USNA as a College Choice. One of the most insightful discussions he had with his B&G was that no one knows what you will do once your commitment is over. You could choose to make the Navy a career choice or you can choose to enter the private sector at that time. His words of wisdom were along the lines that you should not look at USNA as a long term career choice, but as a choice that comes with your first professional job. As with all jobs, you may love it or you may hate it, only you will know. Choosing a career at age 17 is a very difficult thing to do, but viewing this as a college choice with a first job that could lead to a career seemed very responsible. </p>

<p>If you do not view USNA or any of the other Service Academies as a form of a College Choice then you will have a tough time succeeding on the academic side of the house. Why bother with the academics, this is not college, all that matters then is the military training, “After all, what do you call the anchor of the class…” The fact of the matter is Academics are huge.</p>

<p>If USNA didn’t view themselves as a college choice albeit a Leadership College Choice, then why do they now have majors? Why did they not remain in the mode of no majors just a BS degree? Why are they looking at increasing the number of majors? Why do they not just offer a “technical” curriculum? Why are they accredited? Why do they employ more civilian tenure track faculty than military faculty? Why is football huge? Why are there pep rallies for USNA? (not the Navy, USNA)</p>

<p>My son has indicated now that they are in the thick of the academic semester (exams this week) that he truly feels like he is a college student, he goes class, studies in the library, participates in “work study – military duty and professional knowledge would be his campus job”, goes to football games, pep rallies, movies, has joined clubs, plays intramurals and pulls pranks – “kind of like joining a fraternity, it just happens to be the largest “fraternity” in the world” A very healthy attitude for an 18 year old.</p>

<p>When asked the question “Where does your child go to college?” I seriously doubt that any of us answer with “Oh, she/he doesn’t go to college, she/he is in the Navy” We are all pretty quick to answer “my child goes to College at the United States Naval Academy!”</p>

<p>For the applicants who want to look at the Service Academies as a College Choice, we did it and it was a good way for our family to make the college decision. You just have to understand that there is the military component to that college choice.</p>

<p>As a side note, at the college fair that we went to the banner was USNA, there were campus maps, USNA catalogs, NASS brochures, literature on Annapolis, football video playing, talk of the academics, talk of being a college athlete - the Admissions officer representing USNA was a former football player. Pretty typical college recruiting kind of stuff!</p>

3

<p>Profmom2…I only mean to help we poor parents recalibrate in our heads that IN ADDITION to the stresses our kiddos are dealing with in the midst of 18 Academic units…they have the primary overlay of a military committment first. Hence study time is subservient to a required parade practice, or mandatory sport game attendance, or doing a rate for a Firstie…which is a whole different way to approach a college education.</p>

<p>I agree with you that USNA provides a TOP rate education and that diploma means a ton in the job world. I know, my husband’s USNA diploma has gotten him hired several times in competitive jobs .</p>

<p>So this is a both/and kind of issue, not an either/or - but with the added insight that it’s military/college, not college/military that the mids are dealing with.</p>

4

<p>Profmom2,</p>

<p>I think you may have misunderstood the point of Peskemom’s post. Neither she nor the gentleman she mentions intend to say that the Service Academies aren’t colleges in the academic sense, but rather than they are not just any college. When I first found the title of this thread, my instant response to “It’s not college” was “No, it certainly isn’t!”</p>

<p>Let’s be honest: When folks think of college, they normally imagine a campus full of young kids in civilian clothes leisurely walking from class to class (if they have a class that period at all), sleeping in, having fun on the weekends, etc. They do NOT envision parades, inspections, formations, training evolutions, honor codes, and the commitments that lay beyond the diploma.</p>

<p>You are absolutely right that the Service Academies are universities in the academic sense, and damned good ones, too! But beyond that, most similarities to the generic “college” fail.</p>

<p>As to whether an applicant to USxA should be intending to make a career out of the Service is one that is widely open to debate. I went in wanting a career, but ended up not doing so. A good number of my classmates did the same. Others walk in going day-by-day and end up serving 30 years. My only advice to applicants in this regard has been that IF you INTEND to make the Service a career, then USxA is the best place to start. As one who went to USNA and chose NOT to follow a Naval career, I can attest that having gone to an Academy was a DAMNED good move which I don’t regret one bit (well, not while my brain is thinking straight, anyway :wink: ).</p>

<p>

Preach it, brother! TESTIFY!</p>

<p>ETA: Woops. Too slow. Looks like peskemom is on the bounce this morning! ;)</p>

5

<p>I think it’s safe and accurate to say that the Service Academies are colleges like no others.</p>

6

<p>You certainly won’t hear them called party schools! ;)</p>

<p>Actually, if they only knew! :D</p>

7

<p>When we went to West Point for R-Day, I mentioned to a person WP parents know from the various WP discussion forums that I thought the “campus” was beautiful. Then I got a different exposure to the realities of my daughter’s college choice. I was told that this isn’t a campus. It’s an army post. And the USMA is situated on the post. Then she said, “Your daughter is in the Army. Her first assignment is to excel at the U.S. Military Academy.”</p>

8

<p>Exactly. It’s the same reason Midshipmen use the word “Yard”, as in “Navy Yard” from old.</p>

<p>(Ours is nicer, BTW. :wink: )</p>

9

<p>Ours is…:p</p>

10

<p>Yea, and at the UVA its “the Grounds.” </p>

<p>Symantecs are what they are. And so are campuses, home to colleges and their students … which these are, with a twist. As the Navy describes the USNA, it’s the " … undergraduate college of the naval service …" and the Yard is its, dare we say it, campus.</p>

<p>;)</p>

11

<p>

</p>

<p>I never really thought about it before this thread, but when someone asks me where LFWB goes to school, I always say, “He is a Midshipman at Kings Point.” I think I do that to conote that he isn’t just a college student. But then again, I really never thought about it, its just the way it comes out.</p>

12

<p>And well you should communicate the difference, even if you more than your listener discerns the ever-widening chasm from an SA and a secular or sectarian institution. </p>

<p>Truly worlds apart, it seems.</p>

13

<p>I have found that simply naming the Academy in question says it all.</p>

<p>“Where did you go to school?”</p>

<p>“Annapolis.” (Same for “West Point” and “King’s Point”, I imagine. Don’t know if “Colorado Springs” or “Mystic” hit as hard.)</p>

<p>It either evokes a “Wow!” or a “Huh?” Depending upon the answer, you have some idea of who you’re dealing with.</p>

14

<p>And Stanford is “The Farm”</p>

<p>“Symantec’s are what they are” and so goes, Attitudes are what they are. </p>

<p>Each midshipman and their family deal with their choice/view of USNA in different ways. When one comes from a Military background maybe that is the way you view USNA. It works for you and it is right for you. Coming from an academic background, involved with higher education, viewing this as a college choice worked. And now that he is in College at USNA, it still works for him. Neither is exclusively the right way or wrong way to approach USNA.</p>

<p>After 3 exams so far this week he says he certainly feels like he is in College…the undergraduate college of the naval service.</p>

15

<p>You’re on the money. As one of my profs always prefaced our theses discussions with, “You’ve got to stand somewhere to look @ anything.”:eek:</p>

<p>Differing points of view can, often are, equally valid.:cool:</p>

<p>Sometimes the challenging part is figuring out where the heck I’m standing!:confused:</p>

<p>If you can tell, call me. :)</p>

16

<p>

</p>

<p>I’ll bet he does!</p>

<p>He doing OK?</p>