Advice on routes into cadetship/sponsorship

[Guest]

Hi, I was wondering if I could get a little advice on a couple of things.

I'm at Sixth Form right now, got decent grades at GCSE, mostly As and a few Bs, I'm now doing A levels, expecting Bs and Cs (though not in ideal subjects, I'd been planning to go to University before, so I've ended up taking English Lang/Lit, Philosophy and Politics), and I've been looking at routes for getting into cadetship and getting sponsorship. I live in Sunderland, so getting to South Shields/South Tyneside wouldn't be any problem at all, but I'm really not sure about what I should be doing to get into things there, who I should be applying to for sponsorship etc.

I've been looking at Deck Officer training and it seems like something I would like to do, but exactly how to get into the path of becoming a cadet is a little complicated. Any advice at all would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

[alistairuk]

Re: Advice on routes into cadetship/sponsorship

Hi, it might look confusing but its really simple.

Basically;

In the UK all* cadets are sponsored by a company and it is one of these companies to which you apply. They will then interview you and if you are successful offer you a place. The company that is sponsoring you then takes care of arranging your college and sea time (as a result of this; although you may live near a particular college you will probably find yourself attending one at the other end of the country).

You have unfortunately missed most of the college open days where you have an opportunity to visit the colleges and speak to the companies and some cadets.

There is a list of companies that take on cadets on the MNTB (Merchant Navy Training Boards) web site and information about the scheme. Have a look at; http://www.careersatsea.org/

Think what type of ships you want to work on, and then apply to companies that manage those types of ship.

If you have any further questions feel free to ask, although a lot of the questions are answered in some of the other parts of this web site.

You may also wish to watch the STV series 'The Merchant Navy' which gives a bit of a glimpse into the life. http://player.stv.tv/programmes/the-merchant-navy/

*there are exceptions to this, but it is not advisable to do it yourself!