Has it always been the Merchant Navy for you?

[cadetwannabe]

Thought this would be interesting and I have never posted a poll before!

[Randomist]

All I wanted after Police Man, Fire Man, Astronaut and F1 driver

[stronglead]

started out wanting the royal navy but then saw the light haha

[JMac]

I always wanted to be an RAF pilot until the recent cuts, I still do want to be one but the risk of being kicked out during training like one guy did 3 weeks away from qualifying put me off. It is still an option for me though.

[Cadet2Captain]

Bubbled wrap by a sea faring background...Couldn't hack a 9-5 job...

[Chiefy]

Went to Trinity House, father a Chiefy (Mk1), live by the sea.....was never really any other way forward

[cadetwannabe]

Interesting that it isn't always a forgone conclusion, although going to sea does seem to have a family thing going on as well

[CharlieDelta]

Left school, wanted to do medicine at uni but didn't want to commit myself to such a long training process so young and without trying other things. So I went to work for a computer company doing hardware support. Did that for a year, didn't fancy sitting in an office all the time. Moved to the UK from Ireland and became airline cabin crew. Had a blast, did it for over three years but tightening purse-strings in aviation and a lack of any real prospects drove me out. Then went to work for a travel insurance company to tide me over until I worked out my next move, also doing part time work as a hospital porter.

I wanted something that required a bit of brainpower, involved travel and had decent prospects. Soon after I bought my first car I drove home to Ireland via the Fishguard-Rosslare ferry and thought "Hang on - ship driving! I wonder how you get into that sort of thing?" I did my research, found out about the cadetship scheme and liked the reasonably low financial sacrifice (a bonus for mature students). I looked at lots of companies and decided to apply to Carnival. Got in, and the rest is history! There's a bit of MN history in the family and I grew up by the sea, so that helped.

This is not the career for everyone. If I had done this at 16/17 I wouldn't have been able to hack it, but I feel like living independently for a few years has been quite beneficial. I researched a lot before making my decision, and it's certainly been the right one for me. I've had a very succesful first college phase an a great first contract at sea - can't wait to get back to college for the new challenges that phase three brings.

[cadetwannabe]

Glad it is going so well CD, can I ask how old you are?

[CharlieDelta]

Only 23 cadetwannabe

[Stuart T]

always been the sea for me, land just too boring

[IRI5HJ4CK]

The MN has always been what I've wanted to do, and I've never looked back on my decision to join, and hopefully I never will!

[onara]

"Something else, because there is always someone different" - took me a moment to figure out what you mean by that.. but it seems you were right, at the moment the poll results show 1 someone being different.

I'm the something else then changed though. When I was really young I wanted to be a football player but I thought it was too unrealistic, like I would never be good enough at it. I'm a lot more optimistic now but also fairly pants at football since I quit training long ago. I think a lot of British children only aspire to do what they think might be easy.

I was good at Maths and Science at school, saw a careers advisor and he said go to university.. then he gave me a questionnaire with questions like 'do you like the sea?' and 'do you like working outside?'. The top result was Marine Biology and second was Forestry. I did Marine Biology and that was okay, I don't enjoy the writing up scientific papers part of it though - that's mainly what the course was focussed on, probably because it takes a lot of learning from mistakes to get up to a standard good enough to be published in scientific journals. I'm still a bit interested in sustainability and fisheries, but that's just an interest.

Also taught English in Japan for one year, after I graduated, but teaching English was only ever going to be a temporary thing. I did want to find a nice job there if I could. So I've already got my Marine Biology BSc, I'm 23, and soon I'll be an Engineer Cadet.

I have 2 friends who were on Ocean Science degrees with me at university, who have also chosen to go into the merchant navy. So it might be quite common for people to go from that to this.

[dawg]

I've got no family connections, don't come from near the sea, didn't have any childhood knowledge or interest, can't stand mainstream life.
Done some travelling, and didn't want to go back the uk, and started looking into ways of making it viable, and discovered shipping.
I spend the odd bit of time on the bridge telling the deckies where we are.
Despite no previous experience of it, I don't mind being at sea at all. Engineering is not my only interest, I like a bit of variety, "adventure" and travel and chance to live anywhere appeals to me.

[CharlieDelta]

I spend a fair bit of time on the bridge telling the deckies where we are

And you're still alive?