Given that it’s Saturday, I decided to talk about weekends at MMA.

Since the vast majority of cadets at MMA are Massachusetts residents (many of them living within an hour of campus), most people go home on weekends. It’s a nice break from the regiment. For those of us out of state, we have to get a little creative in entertaining ourselves. Some of us go home with friends who live close by, but many of us stay on campus. We quickly get to know the other kids who stay on the weekends, and come up with things to do together. If we have friends at other colleges nearby, we’ll sometimes go there to hang out or go to parties. We’ll go to the Cape Cod Mall in Hyannis, to see a movie or just hang out. If we’re feeling lazy or the weather’s bad we’ll just hang out in the dorms and watch a movie in the study lounge, play card games, etc.

If you are out of state, playing a sport or joining clubs that have weekend activities is a great way to keep busy and entertained. I am on the sailing team, so I’m at regattas many weekends during the season. It keeps me involved, and gives me an opportunity to do something I like.

Mass Maritime certainly doesn’t have the most active weekend life, but if you make an effort you can find plenty of things to do.

All cadets are required to stand watch, license and non-license majors alike. We stand watch in three places on campus - one in the dorms, and two on the Enterprise.

In the dorms, we have watch at the Cadet Information Center (CIC), where we keep track of visitors entering and exiting the dorms, answer the phone during off-business hours, and do rounds throughout the dorms to make sure everything is in proper order. Freshmen are responsible for the rounds, and act as messengers to take information anywhere it needs to be delivered in the dorms or on campus.

On board the ship, there are deck and engine watch posts. Deck watch for freshmen consists of watching the gangway for people boarding and disembarking the ship, signing people in and out, and doing Detex rounds to check for proper order throughout the ship by punching a clock with keys at certain stations. Engine watch is resonsible for ensuring that all equipment in the engine room is performing (or secured) as it should be. Since the engine room is almost entirely secured while at the pier, there aren’t many systems to keep track of, which is nice.

Watch is stood 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on the ship, and all hours before and after the academic day at CIC. These watch positions only apply in this manner while at school. During Sea Term, shoreside watch (CIC) is obviously eliminated, and the number of personnel on watch on the ship is increased significantly. However, we use watchstanding while at school to learn proper watchstanding procedures for when we ship out.

All watches are 4 hours long, except holiday watch which is 8 hours long. Watch periods are 0000-0400, 0400-0800, 0800-1200, 1200-1600, 1600-2000, and 2000-0000. One of the benefits of having an overnight watch is that as a freshman you can sleep during study hours, so you can go to bed before 2200. During Sea Term, overnight watch is even better because you’re not required to be at morning formation the next day, so you can sleep all morning!

Inspections are a major part of the life of a fourth class cadet. Every morning at 0650, all fourth class cadets in the regiment stand room inspections, done by the squad leaders in each company. There are very specific requirements for your room to be inspection-ready, the state in which it is supposed to be kept not only for inspections but at all times. When a squad leader walks up to your room, he or she inspects both you and your room mate’s uniform. They then inspect your room, checking to make sure all horizontal surfaces have been dusted, your rack (bed) is tight, and that your inspection locker is proper. The inspection locker is the biggest part of the room inspection. Every item in the hanging part of the locker must be in the right order, and all hangers must be two finger widths apart. Everything must be properly ironed, and all buttons and zippers must be closed and fastened. There are certain items that must be placed in the right spot on the floor of the hanging area. The top drawer of the locker must contain specific items, each in a certain place and folded a certain way in the drawer. These inspections are done Monday-Thursday every week.

On Fridays we stand regimental sign-outs. At 0700 we stand in formation on the parade field by company, and each fourth class cadet’s uniform is inspected by a member of the regimental staff. In order to earn liberty for the weekend, you must pass these inspections. In the winter we are inspected in our regular long sleeve black uniform, but when we are wearing the short sleeve (summer) uniform, we are inspected in our “salt & peppers” which consist of the regular black pants and a more formal white shirt.

On Sunday nights, fourth class cadets stand regimental inspections. These are room inspections similar to the ones performed each morning, except that your room is inspected by a member of the regimental staff. These inspections serve two purposes: to ensure that all fourth class cadets are back at school after the weekend, and to ensure that our room is clean and orderly to be ready for the coming week.

The only inspection that all cadets in the regiment must stand is Admiral’s inspection. Each company stands Admiral’s twice each semester, coinciding with each company’s weekend watch (I’ll discuss this in a later post). The unique thing about Admiral’s is that even 1/C officers (including the regimental staff) must stand. All the same requirements for regular inspections apply to Admiral’s, but they are much more strict, and additional requirements are added as well. The deck (floor) must be waxed so that it is smooth and shiny, both in your room and in the company’s public areas such as the passageways (hallways). The heads (bathrooms) must be spotless, as well as the study lounges. Everything in your room has to be perfect, and your uniform must be pristine. Admiral’s are a huge deal, and people usually spend the entire week prior to them cleaning and preparing.

Inspections are the single largest aspect of a fourth class cadet’s regimental responsibilities. They are certainly the most time consuming, and while they are no fun, I can appreciate that they make sure my room is always clean!

Orientation is probably the single biggest source of nervousness and apprehension for incoming freshman at Mass Maritime. Last summer when I was talking to some of my soon-to-be shipmates, the vast majority of conversations revolved around Orientation and what people expected it to be like. Many of the rumors my classmates discussed turned out to be just that, but at the time all the information we were talking about amounted to a pretty daunting concept of Orientation. I won’t go into details about the actual Orientation process because, let’s face it, that would take all the fun & suspense away from any incoming freshmen that might be reading this! I can, however, give you some tips for things to do before arriving that helped me get through Orientation.

Learn the Youngie Knowledge. Orientation is much more of a mental test than a physical one. One of the biggest components is the Youngie Knowledge. Luckily, MMA provides a large portion of it online over the summer, to allow freshmen to learn some of it before they arrive. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS. If you come into Orientation knowing this stuff, you’ll be head & shoulders above your classmates who don’t, and Orientation will be significantly easier. I resisted doing this, but my mom insisted that I do it. She would make me learn and recite something from the Youngie Knowledge each time I wanted to go out with my friends, so that I would be sure to memorize it. While it made me furious at the time, I was grateful she had done it once I got to Orientation. It’s not fun, but it’s definitely worth the effort up front.

Get to know your classmates. As a cadet from outside of New England, I didn’t know anybody from back home at Mass Maritime. However, through the Internet I was able to learn names and faces of many of my classmates, and get to know some of them pretty well before ever meeting them in person. I’m not a big Facebook guy, but it turned out to be invaluable in this case. Seeing “familiar” faces when I arrived made me feel much more comfortable about being here, and made it easier to quickly develop new friendships by having already talked to people before arriving. In fact, that was probably the best thing I did to prepare, because even if I had trouble with everything else I had friends that could help me out.

Get (or stay) in shape. Orientation does have a significant physical component, so make sure that you’re in good shape to handle it. Push-ups, sit-ups and running are the most important things since that’s what the PT test consists of, so make sure you can do them well. As long as you’re strong in these areas, you should be well prepared for the rest of Orientation.

Relax. Orientation is designed to put you under a lot of stress, and see how you perform. If you do the things I’ve mentioned above, you’ll be in a great position coming into it. Once you get here, you’ll be immersed into a whole new experience unlike anything you’re likely to have done before. While it will be stressful, it’s important to stay focused and calm, and not worry too much. Orientation is as good or bad as you make it, so by being prepared and staying as relaxed as possible, you should be able to get through it just fine.

I received an e-mail from the parent of a student who will be a freshman at MMA in the fall. She suggested that I write about important aspects of starting out as a freshman at MMA. Over the next week or two, I plan to cover a variety of topics pertaining to Orientation and first semester freshman year. If you have anything specific about the beginning of freshman year that you’d like me to cover, please feel free to post a comment and I’ll try to cover it.