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NCdt Lumber said:And I'm not trying to bicker here, I am humbly dazzled and curiously seeking a professional assessment, but do we not in any way prove our military ability in our phase training? I haven't completed enough of it to get a feel for how people perform on course versus how they perform in life/in the military, but honestly, don't instructors see how someone performs on course and say to themselves and their fellow instructors, "Look at that bloke, he'll make a fine/terrible platoon commander/gunner/clerk/pilot..."?
NCdt Lumber,
Before finishing your BWK training, I guarantee you'll hear this line at least twice:
"Remember what they taught you in VENTURE/HMCS (MCDV/Reg F ship)? Well, forget it...this is how we work in HMCS X." Things change a LOT in between the VENTURE world and the ships...that's what shocks a lot of the A/SLTs and some find it easier, some find it a lot harder. You can never really tell what it'll be like until you get out to your first MCDV for the MARS IV sea phase.
Now, on the subject of whether one needs a degree to be a good officer (general service, not legal/medical/chaplain), I know of some very competent MARS officers who have not had their degrees since they commissioned under the Naval Reserve while in post-secondary, didn't go back to school and continued sailing instead. If they hadn't told me that they didn't have post-secondary, I would have never questioned that they had at least an undergrad. In my experience (much less than all of the others on this thread), my undergrad didn't have a lick of influence on how I handled myself on the bridge or in admin matters. If anything, I always joked that my essay-writing skills (so highly-perfected in civ univ) now wouldn't even pass for a Gr 7 book report! How one performs as an officer has usually zero to do with their education.
What Medtech said about ROTP working with PRes...definitely. Completely, 200% support it.