Starfleet Academy, the bottom half of graduates.

[metalheaddoc]

They probably end up working the night shift at Old City Station like Mr. Adventure did with Uhura in ST:3.

Like we used to say in medical school...
What do you call the guy who graduates last in his med school class?..."Doctor"

 

[Daddy Todd]

Don’t they get assigned to ships like the Orville?

 

[J.T.B.]

So, we have ships like the Enterprise, Galaxy class or sovereign class, that have the "best of the best" the top 10% of the graduates.

This is kind of an odd idea. Was it ever stated to be so? Why would the requirements for good junior officers be different between ship types? Would officers be transferred off Galaxy-class ships every year to make vacancies for the top Academy graduates?

 

[Longinus]

What can happen is that because a person does well in a certain position they are promoted to the next position up which they aren't suited to.

Which seems to be something Starfleet generally doesn't do. Like Tapestry Picard shows, if you're good at astrophysics, they're perfectly fine to let you do that for decades. Now Picard was not happy with his situation, but there are a lot of people who would.

 

[Farscape One]

I wonder if the top percentiles get to choose where they serve, or at least get in the front of the line for when captains and other commanding officers choose who fills out their vacant posts.

I use Bashir as one barometer for this. Being salutatorian in his medical class, he had his pick of any assignment. His words, from the pilot. Dr. Lense chose the Lexington, while he chose DS9, which he was afraid she would have chosen and had his dream job snatched from him.

Another barometer I use is Ensign Kim, since he was valedictorian of his class, and he got to be a bridge/senior officer as his first assignment. How many Ensigns fresh out of the Academy can say that?

 

[Tim Thomason]

The recent episode of Discovery had Pike show off his F in Astrophysics, alongside a slew of As and A minuses. I kinda wish his other grades were more realistic with his F and we could've imagined Christopher Pike as one of these underachieving Starfleet cadets who goes on to massive success in his career and becomes one of the highest decorated Starfleet captains in history to the point of being treated with near-reverence by the Discovery crew.

It would've been a nice message.

 

[MacLeod]

Which seems to be something Starfleet generally doesn't do. Like Tapestry Picard shows, if you're good at astrophysics, they're perfectly fine to let you do that for decades. Now Picard was not happy with his situation, but there are a lot of people who would.

That was a unique situation as Q gave him do over whilst retaining the knowledge of him being a Captain. Would that Picard have been unhappy with his situation if he didn't know that?

 

[Longinus]

That was a unique situation as Q gave him do over whilst retaining the knowledge of him being a Captain. Would that Picard have been unhappy with his situation if he didn't know that?

Probably not, at least to that extent, and that was a part of my point. Such a career progression would have been perfectly normal.

 

[The Wormhole]

This is kind of an odd idea. Was it ever stated to be so?

Quite the opposite in fact. According to Data in Menage a Troi, only a small percentage of Academy graduates get assigned to Galaxy class ships upon graduation.

Another barometer I use is Ensign Kim, since he was valedictorian of his class, and he got to be a bridge/senior officer as his first assignment. How many Ensigns fresh out of the Academy can say that?

Nog was on DS9's senior staff without even graduating the Academy. Wesley was on the Enterprise's before he even attended the Academy. And let's not even bring the Kelvin timeline into this, where you can jump from Cadet to Captain, or even make chief engineer a year out of the Academy.

 

[Farscape One]

I don't really count Nog when he was a cadet on the Defiant because it wartime. That likely changes things... all hands on deck type of thing.

And I don't even bother counting the Kelvin timeline.

 

[The Wormhole]

I don't really count Nog when he was a cadet on the Defiant because it wartime.

I'm not counting him when he was a cadet. I'm counting him when he was an officer. Specifically in the seventh season, Sisko says he want the senior staff in the wardroom, and there's Nog along with everyone else.

 

[valkyrie013]

Senior staff maybe just "the Crew" that is usually asigned to the defiant, but realistically, He's a main character, and he's there reguardless of seniority.
I put it as this, speaking from experiance, When I wen in the the military, I chose what I wanted to do ( This was enlisted, but its the same for officers, Pilot, etc.) which was a general "Aviation" that was put in to my contract, When I was at school, they asked us where would we like to be stationed, Need of the Corps came 1st, but they did take that in to account ( I chose west coast.. and go way way west coast... of Hawaii.. Useded up a lifetimes supply of luck on that one!)

So as shown on the show, the upper percentile usually get there choice in assignments on various ships, stations, etc. The rest still choose where they want to go, if available, and a commanding officer's recomendation to take someone would pretty much gurantee them that assignment. With Picard, We've seen him request certain graduates, like that Bajorian from red squad, because he wanted to give her a chance. I'm pretty sure he takes on what he can, even bottom tier graduates, to see if, given the oportunity, they could shine.
I'm sure there's some nepotism, Maybe Admiral Paris asked his buddy Captain London to ask for his son to be on some top of the line ship.

 

[JesterFace]

I didn't read all the way through 6 pages so I'm not sure if it was already mentioned, but maybe the bottom half gets a red shirt after gratuation. Or at least the bottom quarter..

 

[JirinPanthosa]

They repair ships at Starbases. Run baryon sweeps, things like that.

 

[Delta Vega]

Send all the under achievers to be MACOs

 

[Sir Stewart Wallace]

They're sent to the Agricorps or to perform other services for the Republic.

Wait, that's Jedi.

 

[BillJ]

So, what happens to the bottom half when they get there assignments??

Red shirts on Kirk's Enterprise.

 

[valkyrie013]

Well, speaking of my experiences, In the Corps, Your asvab score ( A test you take to get in to the military, if your unfamiliar, and I'm guessing that there would be a test for the Academy) and how high it is, is what gives you the ability to choose a job, If you score high, you can have pretty much any job you want, but if you score low, I belive a score of 31 was the cuttoff, your options are limited, so say, you score a.. 35.. your options are usually infantry or military police.

So, to the above Red Shirt comment.. Quite Possible!

 

[The Wormhole]

Send all the under achievers to be MACOs

According to the stuff from the novelization of The Expanse/The Xindi, that wouldn't work. 90% of those who enroll in MACO Academy drop out within the first few months, and of those who do last the first few months, only 3% of them actually graduate.

Kind if ironic utopian Earth has such tough standards for the one organization they admit is military.

 

[J.T.B.]

I didn't read all the way through 6 pages so I'm not sure if it was already mentioned, but maybe the bottom half gets a red shirt after gratuation. Or at least the bottom quarter..

Engineering would not require high-achieving graduates? I doubt it. And Ensign Kirk started out in engineering.

Perhaps-interesting aside: Before WW2 the top academic US Naval Academy graduates often did not become line officers but went into the Construction Corps and were sent to naval architecture grad school at M.I.T. The Construction Corps was abolished in 1940 and naval constructors became line officers "for engineering duty only." It was traditional for many decades for the first-in-class US Military Academy graduate to enter the Corps of Engineers as well.

 

[Henoch]

According to the stuff from the novelization of The Expanse/The Xindi, that wouldn't work. 90% of those who enroll in MACO Academy drop out within the first few months, and of those who do last the first few months, only 3% of them actually graduate.

Kind if ironic utopian Earth has such tough standards for the one organization they admit is military.

According to Military.com, only about 6 percent of SEAL applicants make it. MACO is twice as hard.