usna1985
15-Year Member
- Joined
- Jun 9, 2006
- Messages
- 7,866
I thought that you folks had crew rest as part of your ethos
There were 5 of us officer "ground pounders" (the others being the maintainers). Our motto: "We never crew rest."
I thought that you folks had crew rest as part of your ethos
With no intentions to get off track from the main question, does the competition for high class rank create a competitive/aggressive/independent environment for students academically? Or do students strive to help one another out with studies (I.e. study groups)? Trying to get a better idea of the environment.
A final GPA of a little over 2.7 would put you at about the top 40% of my class. . .In my day, if you had a 3.5, you were in the top 30 people in your class. Not joking. A 3.0 would put you top 25%. It was brutal and many, many mids had GPAs from 2.0 - 2.2. Roughly 5-10 mids in each company every semester went to an Ac Board (meaning they were <2.0) and getting sent home for academics your first couple of years was common.
I used to hear about the kind of grade/class rank competition from kids doing Pre-Med at some of the top schools. I never saw it at USNA.This was long ago..but I don't remember even thinking about Class Rank back in the day. Most of us were satisfied to get by! I ended up doing fairly well (top 10%), but not because I was gunning for Class Rank. Midshipman worked together...everyone had their strengths and weaknesses, and some had to work harder than others. Perhaps times have changed - there are more graduate programs and other activities where selection is driven by Class Rank, but I hope the mutual support hasn't changed.
Maybe times have changed and USNA is more like a regular college, or Kings Point is different, but the point is that the ability to prioritize and manage your time wisely is absolutely critical at USNA.
The speed reading courses at USNA are not what you probably think they are. It's about using strategies to pull meaning from text and categorize topics efficiently without wasting time staring at words. Very useful for many plebes, as high school graduates (even at this fine, prestigious university) don't necessarily know how to read well.
Kings Point has a higher attrition rate than USNA, and the admission stats aren't meaningfully far apart. my class graduated less than 200 out of about 260 that started, about 30% attrition. So I would re-think that.
...helping out your classmate typically didn't change your own performance...
They can also figure out what it takes to land in the top 100 without marching in circles. Every year there are Mids that will pull a 4.0 Not easy but you can rest assured that most of the Top 100 have stellar grades.It's also worth noting that really smart mids can do really bone-headed non-academic things that can impact their OOM (but make them very well-practiced at mustering for uniform inspection and marching in a circle for an hour every day). It's not all about academics (or it wouldn't be "N*t College").
I would go so far as to say that helping your shipmates enhances your performance, more often than not.
Deck plate gouge ^^^^^^^^^
BZ!
*Quick note about my background: I went to a very rigorous high school and took as many APs/honors courses as I could. So the academics were much less of a shock for me than many of my peers.
There are plenty of schools that don't have a lot of AP or honors classes but might still have talented candidates.I figured most appointments would have a high school transcript with lots of honors/APs. Is that not the case? From reading who is accepted/rejected, it appears you have to have a pretty stellar transcript to be considered for both nomination and appointment.
Gouge-relates to answers and pertinent information. Known in other circles as the skinny, the low-down, the 411, the poop, the answers, the facts, intel.Excuse my ignorance but what does this phrase mean?
Excuse my ignorance but what does this phrase mean?