MMA Cooperative Education In Demand
Cooperative education is a proven way to combine classroom-based education with practical work experience, helping young people make a smoother college-to-work transition. The model works because the education is relevant, the experience is real, and the job offers are available.
Introduced in 1967, Cadet Shipping became MMA’s initial version of cooperative education. This important innovation is unlike the traditional training cruise for unlimited license candidates as it places students on working vessels in the merchant fleet for “real life” experience. Requirements of completing assigned sea time (60 days for Marine Engineering students, 90 days for Marine Transportation majors), an extensive sea project and satisfactory evaluations from ship officers, lead to four credit hours and career potential. This program continues today, though ship billets are competitive as other maritime academies also derive benefits from the program.
Due to its success, co-op experiences are incorporated into the majority of MMA programs that have been added over the years, however, with this growth comes a need for more billets over a broad academic spectrum. Early projections for summer 2018 experiential learning billets show a need for about 130 cadet shipping billets, 10 Marine Systems Engineering industrial co-ops, 60 Power Engineering co-ops, 85 Vessel Operations (limited tonnage) mate billets and 25 International Business & Logistics positions.
Joe Curtis ’97, Director of Career Services and Co-operative Education, and his staff are working diligently to assist students in finding these opportunities. Obtaining a qualified field experience is challenging. Though companies claim to support cooperative programs, the MMA model qualifies field experiences as academic courses that have to meet a set of objectives, and, therefore, a degree of rigor and specific academic expectations.
Including the estimated 300 unlimited license freshmen and juniors making the annual training cruise, more than 600 students, an estimated 75 percent of the student body, will be participating this year in a required course that exemplifies the MMA’s adage of “hands-on.”
If you wish to consider offering cooperative experiences for MMA students, please contact Joe Curtis, Director of Career Services and Co-operative Education to learn more: joe.curtis@mma.edu or 207-326-0151. (Photo: Logan Goewey)
As a retired Professional Mariner, I can say, as I have for years, the Cadet Shipping Program is the most important program in the MMA curriculum for the future ocean Mariner. Nothing else compares to the value of these assignments. We are competing with the other Academies, and the shipping companies who evaluate the MMA cadet based on the performance of those they have, or had, aboard their ships. Important to place only the most outstanding Cadets. Many of the evaluators are MMA Alumni and Officers on these ships. I worked for many different companies aboard different ships. For Engineers,… Read more »
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