The Training Ship has now departed Vallejo and is making her way to the South Pacific. She will eventually arrive in Honolulu in late June on her way back to the West Coast. Anyone can easily follow the ship on her cruise with pictures and written posts almost daily, by going to this link here.
For the first time many cadets onboard in the engine room and on the bridge will fully appreciate just what it is they are learning in the classroom. The actual real application of knowledge to hands on (literally) skills and decision making, come into sharp focus. It is here on the Training Ship that is used as an educational platform to apply what is absorbed into the brain in the classrooms. This can be a very enlightening experience for most all cadets. Frequently aboard the GOLDEN BEAR, cadets learn the “why” beyond the “how” to perform certain tasks.
While most students are aboard the GOLDEN BEAR for their training cruise, there are many cadets that are also assigned aboard a commercial vessel in actual service trading somewhere in the Pacific Basin. These cadets are experiencing the same educational lessons, albeit in a “real” environment aboard a vessel moving cargo or towing barges.
A significant part of the excellent educational value of attending a maritime academy is the real life hands-on experiences learned aboard actual vessels as part of the greater deck and engine curriculum at Cal Poly Maritime Academy. Classroom and simulator training is excellent. But the real life situations that involve personal direct decision making and problems solving experiences are invaluable to cadets overall training and education.