Why Doesn't Star Trek Have...

[The Wormhole]

Another example of enlisted attending the Academy I just rememberd, in Voyager's Good Shepherd Crewman Tal Celes talked about her time in the Academy.

 

[Saito S]

In TNG's The Drumhead Simon Tarses says his enlisted training was done at the Academy.
(lots of examples)
As we can see, most characters in modern day Trek did indeed attend Starfleet Academy.

Didn't quote all the example text just to save space. But yeah... more characters than I remembered referenced going to "the academy", but how many specify San Francisco? An unfortunately high number, to be sure, but not ALL of them. I still say the only thing that makes sense with how many officers Starfleet seems to have is for there to be multiple academies on multiple planets. But the shows - while they don't contradict this idea outright - do come close to doing so by constantly suggesting that "the academy" refers to the facility in San Francisco (certainly, VOY's "In the Flesh" was a bit of a nail in that coffin).

Also, O'Brien in "Playing God" said he had received education at the Academy, long after the writers and costumers alike had accepted the fact that he had "always" been enlisted.

And I don't see a problem with the idea that enlisted training facilities could in many cases be located near or in full academy facilities, as long as there is more than one academy facility.

Doesn't mean the Academy would always equate San Francisco - there might be other campus areas there. Some things do suggest that all the officers get their training in one and the same facility, but enlisteds might have training facilities outside that city or off Earth. It wouldn't be a problem to accommodate all the officer training in a single city, but there might be capacity problems if all the enlisted training were crammed in the same place, too.

Eh, I don't know... the ratio of officer vs. enlisted seen on screen does suggest that the percentage of full officers is higher in Starfleet than in the modern US military. So I'm not sure I buy a single Starfleet Academy, in San Francisco, accommodating even just the graduating officers for a single year, let alone handling enlisted training.

Funnily enough, we've never seen anybody go through that "standard" program...

The assumption has always been that the standard is four years, but now that you mention it, you're right. Probably a coincidence, but an amusing one.

Troi studied psychology at the University of Betazed before joining Starfleet.

I think Starfleet has three branches: educational that deals with science subjects (including enlisted personnel) & degree level training (including Starfleet Medical); technical that deals with engineering subjects (including enlisted crew) & astronaut training; and officer training. A normal officer cadet will spend 3-4 years doing a combination of all three to varying degrees. If someone comes in with degree level training already, they could spend less time overall by concentrating on training from the other two branches. Post graduate training also exists.

This makes a lot of sense to me, actually. And if there WERE multiple academy facilities, each would offer courses in all three branches, meaning that officers and enlisted personnel could both receive training at these facilities.

 

[The Wormhole]

more characters than I remembered referenced going to "the academy", but how many specify San Francisco? An unfortunately high number, to be sure,

Picard did go to San Fransisco, since he knew Boothby.
Riker likely went to San Fransisco, since he had the same instructor as Picard.
Wesley was seen in San Fransisco.

Sisko and Nog were already covered in my previous post.

Likewise, Janeway and Chakotay both knew Boothby, so they went to San Fransisco.
Chakotay even has hallucinations to his old Academy days in San Fransisco in The Fight.
While we do know Harry Kim attended the Academy, I'm not sure if it was clearly stated he went to San Fransisco. He likely did, given how familiar with the city he was in Non Sequitor.
If he went to San Fransisco, then so did B'Ellanna, since they had the same intructor.

If you want to go into non-canon territory, the novels have everyone going to San Fransisco. In fact, there was even a series for younger readers featuring the TNG characters as cadets in San Fransisco. To my knowledge the existence of other campuses was only mentioned once. One novel mentioned a Starfleet Academy campus on Earth's moon, which apparentally Luthor Sloan attended. So maybe that's actually a Section 31 training compound?

 

[Saito S]

Picard did go to San Fransisco, since he knew Boothby.
Riker likely went to San Fransisco, since he had the same instructor as Picard.
Wesley was seen in San Fransisco.

Sisko and Nog were already covered in my previous post.

Likewise, Janeway and Chakotay both knew Boothby, so they went to San Fransisco.
Chakotay even has hallucinations to his old Academy days in San Fransisco in The Fight.
While we do know Harry Kim attended the Academy, I'm not sure if it was clearly stated he went to San Fransisco. He likely did, given how familiar with the city he was in Non Sequitor.
If he went to San Fransisco, then so did B'Ellanna, since they had the same intructor.

If you want to go into non-canon territory, the novels have everyone going to San Fransisco. In fact, there was even a series for younger readers featuring the TNG characters as cadets in San Fransisco.

It does seem like we don't need anyone to say it explicitly; the evidence definitely points to the academy being JUST the one SF location. Which I really do think is unfortunate. Doesn't make any sense to me that one facility could handle the number of graduating officers that would pass through in one year, given how massive Starfleet is. And there are other advantages to not having the entire academy operation contained in one place.

To my knowledge the existence of other campuses was only mentioned once. One novel mentioned a Starfleet Academy campus on Earth's moon, which apparentally Luthor Sloan attended. So maybe that's actually a Section 31 training compound?

Ha, that's kind of an interesting idea, actually.

Speaking of Boothby, I always figured that he was actually an El-Aurian, since it seems like no matter how old he gets, he keeps tending the grounds.

 

[Timo]

Yeah, he's probably been "a hundred years old" for the past five hundred years... And were we to attend West Point in the Trek version of today, we might run into a familiar-looking gardener, with a story or two to tell about the Civil War. That is, if he told stories instead of just listening.

Doesn't make any sense to me that one facility could handle the number of graduating officers that would pass through in one year, given how massive Starfleet is. And there are other advantages to not having the entire academy operation contained in one place.

Yes, those are the two major arguments here: it's potentially impossible, and it's not even desirable. But on the "it might be desirable after all" side of the coin, a loose coalition like the Federation might well wish to impose an extra level of loyalty on its diverse collection of officers and crew by forcing all of them to attend the same facility and to undergo the same allegiance rituals at the same memorials. And on the "it might be possible after all" side, who's to say how big a training facility can get? We have million-student universities today, albeit with distributed facilities; the UFP might easily have dedicated the entire city of San Francisco as a campus for the SF Academy, "distributing" the facilities in a localized manner.

Million-strong attendance would be plenty, given how Starfleet only seems to have the bare minimum of personnel and ships to arrive at crisis points in the nick of time. OTOH, our heroes would become demigods of sorts if they graduated at the very top of a ten-thousand-strong rather than a hundred-strong class... And Data did say that he attended a class of 78, not a class of 78,000.

Timo Saloniemi