cthia wrote:cthia wrote:Remember, even Honor had to be tutored and she has an advanced IQ.
And the education in the Star Empire is second to none.
ldwechsler wrote:Essentially the navy prefers to educate people on its own. The techs all go to school and are trained on the equipment they use. As they become expert, they move up the ranks.
Yes, there are some subjects that might be a bit more "optional" but keep in mind Honor was preparing to be an officer. They are expected to have a broader background. And he specialty was tactics.
We've seen atrogator officers. They probably were the ones who actually did the tutoring.
We should also note a really high degree of automation, however. In countless battles, operations officers assigned targets to different ships. Think about how complicated things had to be in the battle against Filareta.
He had hundreds of ships and Honor's people had to assign targets to every one of her hundreds of ships. There had to be some way to assign them and pass the targets along. From what
I've read along the way, a lot of the processes had to be more or less automatic.
People had to learn how to use the systems and they certainly had people able to repair them who understood even better all the inner workings.
Remember how Wanderman came up with a quick fix in Honor Among Enemies? He understood the system.
My bold to call attention.That is exactly what I was referring to because PeterZ's initial post mentioned the Crusher.
I remembered coming across this during
The Crusher thread and bookmarked it...
/profile/Steve-Miller-187
Steve Miller, USAF Vietnam Vet; 173 Missions; Military History Author & Career Service Mentor
Updated Feb 4, 2016
I do volunteer military service advising with local high school counseling offices and college career centers. Quite a few high school students inquire about service academy appointments. The counseling offices know that if a teenager is to stand any kind of chance in getting a service academy appointment, they need to get me involved as early as possible - like in the 9th grade. When kids wait until they are in the 10th or 11th grade to reach out to me, and they haven't started any upfront planning or leg work thus far, the "mountain" to climb in preparing to apply is really steep; this is especially so if the youngster hopes to go straight from high school graduation into an academy.
I also encourage middle school counseling offices to send kids my way. It is almost impossible to start your academy appointment efforts too soon. Using myself as an example, I knew in grade school I wanted to be my family's 4th generation military serviceman. Because I wanted to fly, and I would need a 4-year college degree to become a pilot, I decided I may as well go to a service academy; so, I contacted my Congressman in 7th grade to learn what I needed to do to get an appointment.
Tom Stagliano hit the nail right on the head about your local Congressman and/or Senator. All U.S. legislators get bombarded with kids seeking an appointment. Although there's no Federal Law to dictate a legislator's selection methods or criteria, let's face it, we're in a society where many people are quick to cry "foul" if they think their kid got ripped-off in the academy appointment process. To that end, all of the Congressmen and Senators maintain an appointment preparation package to keep the appointment process as transparent as possible.
All of the service academies are tough to get into. Aside from the U.S. Military Academy, the Naval Academy, and the Air Force Academy, keep in mind there are other options, such as: the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, and two state-sponsored Merchant Marine Academies (one in New York, and another in California). Additionally, there are some very prestigious private universities who operate as a civilian service academy, such as: The Citadel, Norwich University and the Virgina Military Institute.
In order to become a top-rated appointee, do two things: Start the preparation process in middle school, or 9th grade, as a minimum. The second thing to do is "cast-the-net-wide," meaning seek an appointment from as many schools as possible.
There simply must be something
there "to work with" in keeping with the level and pace of instruction that one will encounter at the academy. You cannot slow the entire class down because of inadequately educated students.
An outfit like the Naval Academy simply has to require a certain base education and excellence or people will be failing or dropping out like flies.
And textev stated that the RMN had to accelerate the classes in order to graduate more officers to feed Bupers' already ravenous appetite. IOW, class instruction that is already proceeding quite quickly goes into overdrive. The average Verge student wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell to keep up.
That applies to any ole academy. Now consider
The Royal Manticoran Naval Academy that is the premiere naval academy in the entire galaxy.
