OK, How Does Starfleet Academy Work Exactly?

[C.E. Evans]

I've always taken the position that the main campus of Starfleet Academy is in San Francisco, but but there are other facilities affiliated with the Academy throughout the Federation. Some cadets may spend only a year or two in San Francisco, but receive additional real-world training as midshipman officers aboard an actual active duty vessel or base before getting their commissions. References to being "at the Academy" could refer both to the time they were physically there as well as the time spent training elsewhere, but still under its program, IMO.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The Wormhole wrote:

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Nog wasn't a Federation citizen and he got in. However, I think non-Federation citizens need a recommendation from a Starfleet command officer, which Nog got from Sisko.

I bet whoever gave Ro her recommendation, regretted it later...especially after the disaster at Garon II.

CorporalClegg wrote:

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Bones is a good example. He went to Ol' Miss and then went on to medical school. If he were to join the modern navy, all he'd have to do is enroll in OCS. But instead he went to the Academy.

Maybe that was OCS that McCoy took part in (during ST XI). We don't know that he and Kirk were at the Academy for the same amount of time. They left on the same shuttle, and we saw them take the Kobayashi Maru test together, but that's it, really. McCoy could have been there for a much shorter time than Kirk was.

And who knows - maybe the only reason McCoy was present during the test in the first place was that he's a friend of Kirk's. Kirk could have asked to have him there. It could be Starfleet policy to have a cadet be able to choose those who'll be manning the other stations during the test. Could be that if not for Kirk, McCoy would have never been there. It's not like he's a command officer, anyway.

[tighr]

Especially considering McCoy was already a Doctor by that point.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

"Bones, I want you to be on the bridge with me when I take my test."
"DAMMIT JIM, I'm a doctor, not a helmsman!"

[sbk1234]

It would also make some sense that even medical officers recieve some trianing in starship operations, since the time may come when they have to take over in an emergency situation.
Even though he probably wasn't there as long as Kirk or was taking most of the same classes.
It also would make sense that his medical school on Earth focused on Human medicine, while his Starfleet medical training focused largely on extraterrestrial medicine.

[Timo]

Random points:

- A noncom getting into a training program for relatively quick conversion to commissioned officer is common practice in the real world. It would have been quite fitting for, say, Chief O'Brien to undergo such training and get a commission because he essentially did department head work normally done by commissioned officers. We know he did not, but OTOH we see Janice Rand proceed from supposed noncom status in TOS to verified noncom status in TMP (she wears a noncom insignia, even if it's difficult to notice) to verified officer status in the later movies.

- Getting a recommendation from a Starfleet officer is not something specific to non-Federation hopefuls, because Kirk refers to similar patronage as having been part of his own career, in "The Apple". Or are we perhaps to assume that Kirk was not a Federation citizen originally? His childhood did involve a stint at the Tarsus IV colony that did not appear to have much respect for UFP laws and practices.

- Varying lengths of Academy studies are more or less confirmed already: we know of a few four-year stints (even if only through computer readouts in TNG "Conundrum", a cornucopia of such information), but also of a five-year undertaking ("Bread and Circuses") and of a three-year performance (STXI). We also get references to Deanna Troi studying in both Starfleet Academy and the University of Betazeds, quite possibly simultaneously, or perhaps in a fashion that indicates relatively short SF Academy studies.

- The rigorous testing and initial flunking of Wesley and Jean-Luc might be solely due to them having been underage applicants, at least the first time around. Eighteen seems to be the entry norm for H.sapiens, and might be the age limit below which special competence must be demonstrated.

- The brief reference to O'Brien's Academy studies in "Trials and Tribble-ations" was more a joke than anything else, and might be dismissed without assuming that O'Brien ever set foot in an Academy lecture hall.

Timo Saloniemi

[Star Wolf]

Minuet wrote:

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As far as I can tell, anyone can enlist and become a non-com crewman, but according to a Voyager episode ("Meld" I think), non-coms can be recommended for the officer program. So, already it's working differently than the actual military. Then again, I know less about the actual military than I thought I did, so I could be wrong on that.

By the modern military I guess you mean the United States Military as other nations have their own standards. Both NonComs and enlisted lower ranks can be recommended for officer training, but a recommendation alone is not enough to get a service member into an academy a ROTC program or Officer's Candidate school.

Maybe to be an officer, you need good grades, but any schmuck can become a non-com. Or maybe to be a officer, you just need to take a lot more schooling. Non-coms can clearly advance to become officers at some point, just like in the real military (okay, I know for a fact that happens, at least).

Any enlightenment on this issue? I realize this sort of thing is poorly developed in snippets across the entire breadth of the franchise, so we don't have much to go on.

There is no evidence that any schmuck can be a NCO, in fact schmuck status seems to be reserved for your basic Ensign and Lieutenant before the latest movie. As the only one of his kind we have extensive screen time with Chief O'Brian come across more like the Top Soldier, who has been more rigorously selected then the young Ensigns and Lieutenants assigned to his department on DS9

[Karnbeln]

Star Wolf wrote:

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There is no evidence that any schmuck can be a NCO, in fact schmuck status seems to be reserved for your basic Ensign and Lieutenant before the latest movie. As the only one of his kind we have extensive screen time with Chief O'Brian come across more like the Top Soldier, who has been more rigorously selected then the young Ensigns and Lieutenants assigned to his department on DS9

This is the interpretation I take. It seems like the vast majority of people in Starfleet are officers, with the non-comms being an exception.

My guess is that you need a decent amount of training and education to work on a Federation starship, no matter what your job is, and Starfleet would rather take care of that training itself. It also simplifies the rank structure and allows anybody on the ship the opportunity to potentially rise up to be an admiral, making it a true meritocracy. Non-comms are specialists, people who didn't go to the academy but were granted the opportunity to work in Starfleet because of their great knowledge and skill.

This allows both the inclusion of non-comms and Gene Roddenberry's early claim that everyone in TNG's Starfleet was an officier.

[JirinPanthosa]

Come on now, everybody knows that when selecting new Starfleet cadets, they round up the most gifted people in small groups of four or five and put them through a winner take all academic decathlon.

Nog must have nailed that dynamic relationships test.

[Timo]

Well, since Wesley clearly was fighting for a place in a specific quota, it sounds pretty natural to assume that it was the small quota for grossly underage hopefuls. It's difficult to tell with Benzites, I guess, but the others really were a bunch of kids. (Or what Hollywood expects us to accept as kids, at any rate.)

Timo Saloniemi

[KamenRiderBlade]

Karnbeln wrote:

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This is the interpretation I take. It seems like the vast majority of people in Starfleet are officers, with the non-comms being an exception.

My guess is that you need a decent amount of training and education to work on a Federation starship, no matter what your job is, and Starfleet would rather take care of that training itself. It also simplifies the rank structure and allows anybody on the ship the opportunity to potentially rise up to be an admiral, making it a true meritocracy. Non-comms are specialists, people who didn't go to the academy but were granted the opportunity to work in Starfleet because of their great knowledge and skill.

This allows both the inclusion of non-comms and Gene Roddenberry's early claim that everyone in TNG's Starfleet was an officier.

I agree with your interpretation.

In the future, I bet they'll probably merge the Non Com into the Officer route and make everybody an Officer in name.

Yet everybody will train in the same basic skills / technologies and learn until they are mature enough to go into the command route if that's what they choose to do.

[Nerys Myk]

KamenRiderBlade wrote:

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I agree with your interpretation.

In the future, I bet they'll probably merge the Non Com into the Officer route and make everybody an Officer in name.

Yet everybody will train in the same basic skills / technologies and learn until they are mature enough to go into the command route if that's what they choose to do.

Well the "O" in NCO does stand for "officer."

My father was in the USAF. He joined as a kid who hadn't graduated high school and retired as a highly trained technician (and Master Sergeant) who parlayed that training into a long career in the aerospace industry. I don't see why the same can't be true for Starfleet's enlisted.

[Star Wolf]

Or Gene was also LAPD where "officer" ranked Lieutenants are treated as ordinary officers but then Captains and Commanders are considered command staff along with the Chiefs. Of course in Trek we have many "command staff" Ensigns and LTs while the bulk of those officers seem to do only the specific duties we are applying to the enlisted and NCO ranks of today's military and Starfleet.

[R. Star]

One would have to assume that they don't have a single facility in the whole Federation turning out officers either.

Either, Starfleet Academy is similar to the US Army's relationship with West Point, meaning that it's the premiere academy, but hardly the only place you can get a commission from, or the Academy had multiple installations all across the Federation.

If you have a fleet of thousands of ships and outposts across a Federation that had 300 + worlds, I don't care if the San Fransisco Facility turns out 50,000 people per class with a 100% graduation rate(which we know doesn't happen), that's not gonna cut it.

[The Wormhole]

Star Grinch wrote:

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One would have to assume that they don't have a single facility in the whole Federation turning out officers either.

Unfortunately, it does seem to be the case. Just look at the statistics:

In TOS we know Kirk, Spock, Sulu and Chekov did attend the Academy. If you take Trek XI into account, we have proof for everyone except Scotty attending the Academy.

In TNG everyone went to the Academy according to their computer files in Conundrum.

In DS9 Sisko, Bashir, O'Brien, Nog, and Admiral Ross are all confirmed to have attended the Academy. Yes, even the enlisted man attended the Academy, apparentally.

In Voyager we know Janeway, Chakotay, Harry Kim and B'Ellana Torres attended the Academy, and Tuvok even taught there.

Hell, in Enterprise a crewman on the NX-01 somehow had a diploma from Starfleet Academy over ten years before it was even founded.