After two years of finishing my degree and almost two years to finish the cadetship time, I came back to the university to do my master’s degree in Nautical Science.
It was never my plan to do the master’s degree as soon as I finished my cadet sea time, but I always keep in mind that life is unpredictable and has a lot of unexpected turns. We need to find the best way to take advantage of a bad moment and turn it into a good one.
With COVID, all cruises stopped the operation and I stayed unemployed. Cargo ships are struggling as well with crew changes, even though they remain in operation.
I know I had more options for work, but I decided to take advantage of this pandemic to finish the studies that I would be needing in the future anyway, no time like the present.
What do we learn on the master’s degree?
On the master’s degree we dive deep and mix the knowledge we learned both on the degree and during our time at sea.
The master’s degree is separated in two years: the first is comprised of several classes and the second year is dedicated to writing the thesis.
Subjects I will have this semester:
- Ships manoeuvre
- Navigation complements
- Maritime law
- Marine safety and ship security
- Health care
- Ship stowage and cargo handling
- Team and crisis management
How does it feel to come back to school?
It’s kind of weird going back to school, especially during COVID times.
For now, we are aware that all our classes are presential but that could change any minute.
For now, I feel safe with the COVID measures the university is putting in action but I’m not really sure if I will have classes at school until the end of the semester, because unfortunately COVID cases keep increasing.
We need to stay positive!
Fist day at school:
Wearing the mask all day non-stop is something that we already got used to…
What I wasn’t used to anymore was to have classes, having to wake up early in the morning and enduring all the traffic in the streets just to get to school at 7 am.
At sea I used to wake up at 0725 to be on the bridge at 0745.
Yesterday I woke up at 0640 and still managed to arrive late at 0810…
On the other hand, I find the classes to be much more interesting now that I’ve already experienced working aboard.
I’m not saying that they weren’t interesting in the past, but now I have a totally different point of view regarding everything.
I already have a scheduled presentation!
At the beginning of November!
I will present to my class a work about containers where I will describe in detail container types, new technologies and stowage conditions.
I will learn more about all this and then share it here!