Starfleet Academy, the bottom half of graduates.

They get posted on ships just like everyone else.

Tal Celes from Voyager must have been one of them.

 

That was my point. Data is extremely smart, but being book smart and street smart are two very different things. Data is not very street smart, to employ the phrase, which I said is likely why he advanced so slowly.

 

Actually, no. She's enlisted, so she should have only attended the enlisted training program. Then again, she does talk about how her teachers at the Academy fast tracked her anyway because there was a desire to have more Bajorans serving in Starfleet.

No one ever really put any thought into Starfleet's enlisted personnel.

 

The Enlisted Training Program is also located at the Academy, Simon Tarses specifically mentions this.

 

I think one of the ways Starfleet is different from today's militaries is that officers--particularly junior officers--are expected to do grunt work and serve in some capacities that would otherwise be carried out by enlisted personnel in our time. Starfleet enlisted personnel, though, seem primarily confined to background support and technical roles, which would explain why Starfleet seems so officer-heavy if most enlisted are those nameless (and often without any rank insignia) extras we see in the background.

 

Which would mean San Francisco is Starfleet's only training facility for officers or enlisted. Which seems a bit insane for a nation that consists of 150 planets.

 

San Francisco is likely more of a central campus for the Academy, but there are probably other training facilities throughout the Federation, IMO.

 

Least of all, Roddenberry himself. Even if Garison, and the transporter chief from The Cage (identified non-canonically as Nils, Clegg, or Glenn Pitcairn), and miscellaneous others were given enlisted rank. Indeed, The Making of Star Trek, if memory serves, even goes so far as to deny the existence of enlisted personnel in Starfleet.

 

That is correct; page 209 of TMOST states the following:

"Although the Enterprise is a military vessel, its organization is only semimilitary. The "enlisted men" category does not exist. STAR TREK goes on the assumption that every man and woman aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise is the equivalent of a qualified astronaut, therefore an officer."

 

There's minor evidence of multiple Starfleet Academies on other planets (Psi Upsilon, for example) and other campuses on Earth (Tom Paris spent a semester of his Academy training in Marseille). Tarses did his enlisted training in "the Academy's training program for enlisted personnel", but that could be anywhere. Since Tarses was a Martian, he possibly trained at the Starfleet Technical Services Academy on Mars.

We know from O'Brien that many enlisted don't go to the Academy (even if they train under the auspices of such). Although, Bashir once implied that O'Brien went to the Academy, so it's s bit murky there.

I think Starfleet Academy, Earth Branch, San Francisco Annex, is like the major prestige service school of Starfleet, a la Annapolis (but even tougher to get in), but many other Academies exist, and perhaps other schools even have their own OCS programs (University of Betazed? University of Mississippi?).

I forgot that Discovery shows us two characters (Michael Burnham and Saru) of high rank who appear to have never attended the Academy. And another character (Tilly) who was a Cadet assigned to a starship (also applies to Nog in Deep Space 9). Maybe most Cadets only spend a very short time on campus, and field training on active starships is the norm (see, possibly: Kirk on the Republic, Spock on the Enterprise, Sisko on Starbase 137, the Valiant, the Enterprise in Wrath of Khan and Star Trek 2009, Pike's reference to "cadet ships" and his later radiation incident on a Class J cadet ship).

 

"I'll take Shitty Starfleet Officers for 200, Alex"

"The answer is: this is what happens to the bottom of each graduating class from the Academy. "

Boopbleepbleep

"Yes, I Am Kirok?"

"What is "The Orville?"

"That's correct!"

 

With Nog, it seems that the sophomore or junior year is when field training happens. I think that is likely with all cadets.

 

Canon is fairly silent on this topic, but the old novel Best and the Brightest suggests that extended field training is generally an optional module during the summer break.

It's also possible that Starfleet officer training can operate like the Royal Navy's current scheme where all officers spend up to a year at the training college (including 10-weeks "sea time" as a rating), then non-warfare officers are posted to the Fleet as midshipmen to undergo additional role-specific training*, warfare officers remain at the training college to complete a foundation degree (two-year undergrad) in naval studies. before joining the Fleet as sub-lieutenants.

* Which may include a Open University degree but this is not required (but may help with promotion to senior ranks).

 

Ah right. Completely missed that she was a crewman and assumed she was an ensign. The dialog doesn't help, though.

Some episodes make me doubt that

 

There are hundreds of ships and stations and planetary outposts that need officers.

 

I 'd still think they get at least a decent shot at serving at a ship, like Celes got - (even if she isn't an Academy graduate). However, whether they can stay there is probably up to annual evaluations and such, but that also goes for the best graduates if they turn out to be abysmal officers - actual service may be substantially different from the Academy, after all.

 

And some may have gone through the Academy and finished, only to get on a starship and find themselves in battle or some dangerous anomaly or whatever, and decide it really isn't for them and either request transfer to a planet or resign.

Grass is always greener, etc., etc...

 

I'm sure there's a lot of just general labor to be done across the universe. Need bodies to fill those roles. I am no genius, but am able to do most tasks easily when I put my mind to it. I'm sure there are more "average" people like me out there in Trek than the "Picards", and honestly, the Federation would NOT function without them.

 

Well lets take engineering for example, and further it, the Enterprise D-E one under Laforge.
So Laforge is the Chief engineer, basically the "Captain" of engineering, but engineering operates like any other place, so there are 3 shifts, Alpha, Beta, Gamma. Laforge would be in charge of Alpha, and some other officer, beta and gamma repectivly. Under Laforge would be a few officers that are "team leader" so I'm guessing those are also officers, Lt or Ensigns. and all the "Grunts" are enlisted that handle replacing self sealing stembolts, and lubing the flux capacitors.
So 1 shift in Engineering would have atleast 2-3 top officers, then another 5 teams with officers and enlisted.
But this is a starship, ever stay in a hotel and the a/c doesn't work, or the toilet is clogged? Engineering!! So the lowest of the low ensigns and enlisted fix the comode, repair replicators, etc. So.. to me.. the ones that graduate on the low end end up at the bottom jobs..

 

Which is silly and best left ignored. There's no way a ship of 400 operates if everyone is an officer. How the hell does any work get done?

Tarses trained at San Francisco. He spoke of sitting by a tree watching the cadets at the Academy doing their drills, and Picard recognized the tree he was talking about and said it was a favourite place of his to visit too.

Thing is, we have an alarming number of characters who we know did attend the Academy, and many of them can be confirmed to have attended San Francisco. Hell, aside from Enterprise (which takes place before the Academy was founded) Disco is the only series to feature a Starfleet character who we know for certain did not attend the Academy.

Except whenever anything goes wrong on the Enterprise D it's always the Chief Engineer and the ship's second officer who go crawling around the Jeffries Tubes. Which is absurd to the point of being laughable.