School

OK... so this is a little overview of my new school. For the first 7 weeks we are with the Off Crew Training Group (OCTG), and we have lectures and training events and seminars sporadically throughout the day, usually for a total of three hours. For the rest of the 12 hours, we have a one-inch thick book of qualification cards, with multiple checkouts on each page. There is a certain number of checkouts we have to complete before Off-Crew is done, and all of them have to be finished to graduate. There are two libraries, lots of computers with lots of information, and the two subs. That's about all the guidance we get. Then it's just "Get your quals done. Have fun." So my day involves deciding which checkouts I want to get done, looking up my references for that particular topic, system, component, part, etc, going to the library to find those references, sifting through all the information (hundreds of pages sometimes) to find the important parts, learning as much as I can about the topic, and then finding an instructor qualified to sign off my qual-card, presenting all the information to them in oral form, answering lots of questions about the system (checkouts are usually 20-40 minutes each of an instructor grilling the student on obscure details) and then hopefully getting my checkout signed off. Sometimes the instructor will send a student to do a lookup on a point the student was weak on, have them come back and show off their new-found knowledge, and then sign their checkoff. Then it's off to start studying for another checkout. It's fun, though. The problem is finding an instructor who has time to listen to you regurgitate all that information. The best part is being able to actually walk around on a real, operating, nuclear-powered sub. They just cut us loose in there and say 'learn it'. I love it.

More later.