Week Two!

Everything is flowing well now as we come towards the end of the second week. Classes are in full swing. This semester I am taking classes in Radar, Literature and Film, Celestial Navigation, Basic Seamanship, and Global Marine Distress Safety Systems (GMDSS). Most of these classes are certainly not the average college courses that the run of the mill college student takes. Here at MMA we are fully engulfed in our majors by sophomore year. As reflected in my class schedule, four out of the five classes are major classes. Some of these courses come with labs as well. Actually all of my major classes this semester have labs. Thursday for me is what I like to call "Lab Day". This involves Basic Seamanship lab, Radar lab, and GMDSS lab. These labs are two hours each and run back to back starting at 0800. While this is a very busy day, I like to think of it as one of the best days. This is because I get to do so many neat things such as rowing, use the Radar simulator, and practice Morse Code. When I was a kid I knew what Morse Code was, but I never imagined I would ever need to learn it or use it. Now one of my major courses requires me to be able to understand four words per minute of Morse Code. Learning the code has been interesting as the letters of the alphabet become different "dit's and dah's".

Throughout the rest of the semester, when I blog, I'll try to talk about my different classes so that all of those who are reading can get a feel for what it is I am learning here. Of course I can only speak for the Marine Transportation major, which is nothing like any of the other excellent majors here.

Looking forward, next weekend will be the first meet that the Buccaneer Track and Field team will have. Track is one of my favorite sports because the team is like family. We work hard together, motivate each other, and have great times.

Until Next Time,

3/c Joshua Lamm

Cadet Blogger

joshua.lamm@maritime.edu