Deck cadet - HND vs Foundation degree

[Ullevi]

Hi everyone,

Forgive me if this is going over old ground, however, just hoping for some clarity before an upcoming interview I have for a deck cadetship.

I have been trying to do some research into the advantages and disadvantages of doing the HND deck course or foundation degree course and found the below on South Tyneside's website.

http://www.stc.ac.uk/marine/courses.php?i=1&a=4&l=5

My (basic) understanding was that the foundation degree was a bit more work and took longer to complete. The advantage being that if you decide to do a chief mates ticket you then have to spend less time back at college. Is this correct?

Also from reading the South Tyneside website both courses last 156 weeks. My rough calculations being HND - 74 weeks at college and 82 weeks at sea. Foundation degree - 61 weeks at college and 95 weeks at sea. Am I reading this correct?

Also on the FD programme phase 1 college is only 5 weeks before commencing your first trip to sea. Is this correct?

Many thanks for any help/advice/guidance.

[jacob44]

Also on the FD programme phase 1 college is only 5 weeks before commencing your first trip to sea. Is this correct?

I don't remember the answers to the rest but they have been covered in the past. Underneath that section there's an empty table. That should contain the rest of the college time. You spend a few weeks doing your safety stuff (PSC, firefighting etc) as well as EDH. But you'll also spend around five months (ish, that's off the top of my head) studying at college before going to sea.

[SeaboundBySunrise]

I haven't looked at the site but i don't see how they could cram all of phase one into five weeks and expect people to go to see with a grounding in what they're doing. We're doing it in 15 weeks ish and it's been full steam ahead from day one.

[bridgemonkey]

Both will take you 3 years, both will give you the 12 months sea time you need for OOW. Most shipping companies will structure it so you get as close to 12 months as possible so they have berths free for others so the whole 82 to 95 weeks at sea is only the amount of time in which you have to complete the sea time of 12 months.

5 weeks for phase one is incorrect. Figure on September to February for phase 1, February to September phase 2, September to June for phase 3, then figure on having final sea phase and orals prep etc from then until the following June.

You will most likely get about 5 months in the first sea phase and then finish the remaining amount in the second.

FD they say is more independent study but you will learn the same things and be examined to the same syllabus once you walk into the local marine office at the end of phase 5.

As many have said before on other threads this is a full time job for 3 years. Don't view it as a university course where you will have maybe 10 hours of contact a week.

[mattjones1]

FD is not 5 weeks at college before sea! Its about 27 weeks here at STC in phase 1 before sea

[Maritimer]

Also on the FD programme phase 1 college is only 5 weeks before commencing your first trip to sea. Is this correct?

I'd heard that the STC FD Deck course is changing from this Sept, and the college website seems to confirm that. Personally I think a five week Phase 1 is too short for you to really learn much. One week of that will be the basic STCW courses (one day Personal Survival, one day First Aid, 2.5 days Basic Fire, and 0.5 days PSSR). It also mentions PSC&RB (lifeboats) and Efficient Deck Hand. These are normally a week each (but they may just be a briefer intro), plus I expect there will be a half day Enclosed Space Entry course squeezed in somewhere. Sounds like the Sept 17 intake will be off to sea with almost no classroom time under their belts!

On the website all the subjects mentioned in Phase 3 are currently taught in the first phase (which runs Sept-Apr), and the Phase 5 subjects are currently taught in Phase 3. The current Phase 5 is really short (basically just resits, a few short courses, and orals prep), so it sounds like they're 'flipping' the course structure so that the Phase 1 becomes the short college phase instead.

[Chiefy]

STC are returning to the old timings of the cadetship, previously phase 1 was 5 weeks, then off to sea.

Why? To weed out those who aren't committed, the sooner you are at sea the sooner you wake up and smell the coffee. How much you know on first sea phase is irrelevant, personally most cadets I see have their heads so full of crap and stuck so far up their own butts the sooner they are here the better. Asking a question of a cadet is hard work, the colleges fill you/them with overly complicated jargon......honestly it isn't hard or complicated, if it was newbie wouldn't let me do it

The amount of times we get an alarm or an issue and people say to me oh the set point is wrong or the software is wrong......how? Why? It has worked for years and now it dosent, did a ninja appear overnight armed with a usb stick and alter the software? No! Get out of the control room or look out of the windows and realise that it is not a simulation, every mouse click has a real world end point, find it, learn it, figure out how things connect and stop over complicating things!

[Ullevi]

Thanks guys.