On February 11, dozens of SUNY campuses convened at the Legislative Office Building in Albany’s Empire State Plaza to showcase their individual contributions to their communities as well as SUNY’s collective contributions. SUNY Day is an event where the public, senators, and assemblymen are all welcome to see the latest of what each SUNY campus has to offer. This year’s theme was experiential education.
Generation SUNY is helping to bring you a few of those stories in our SUNY DAY 2013 series.
SUNY Maritime College
Maritime College (SUNY) is a 4 year college located in historic Fort Schuyler underneath the Bronx side of the Throgs Neck Bridge. The structured cadet life, content-centered curriculum, and hands-on team building approach to learning prepares students for their careers. Being the first maritime college founded in the country, the institution naturally offers summer training cruises to Europe, 5 ROTC options, US Coast Guard license intern programs. Experiential education is a key to being prepared for work on the open water.
At SUNY Day 2013, we had the pleasure of speaking with two junior, second class cadets studying at Maritime, Thomas and Allison. “Not only are we representing one of the more unique and more technical SUNY schools, but we’re representing a school that specifies in a very necessary commodity for global trade”, said Thomas.
They elaborated on the college and its top of the line engineering facilities, specifically the 565-foot training ship Empire State VI. Each summer, cadets travel across the world for sessions of 45 or 90 days learning about the maritime industry and operations of the ship. In order to graduate, each cadet needs to log 180 days of sea time before receiving their license to sail professionally.
Maritime College also has the Maritime Industry Museum located on campus. The museum tours are open to the public and are a great experience. “The museum offers one of the largest collections of maritime industry materials in the nation and is displayed chronologically.” It is funded and operated by volunteers and donations so the displays are constantly changing.
“The maritime industry is an industry that’s existed as long as people have been trading with each other and it’s something that’s always going to be around so it always needs professionals to work on board ships.”
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