As I quickly approach my half-way point of seminary, I am beginning to reflect on what has changed in my life and what has stayed the same. Especially as I begin to think about the next chapter in life that will begin in about 18 more months. When I first arrived in seminary I knew things would not be completely opposite from that on the sub, but the similarities really surprised me. In the vein of the famous 100 ways McDonald's is better than a submarine, I offer a list of ways in which seminary is no different than being on a submarine. I will not set a final number as I am positive the list will grow and change over the next half of my time here.
Disclaimer: I am in no means saying I want to go back and live the life of an XO/CO on a sub. I am glad I followed my call to ordained ministry, but man sometimes I feel that maybe everything is like being on a sub.
1. The technology sucks. Sub's have computers that take 14 character passwords and are typically a generation behind what the rest of the world uses. Seminary has computer programs that are put into use before they are even tested leaving us to figure out how to register for classes the night before when trying to get other work done.
2. Grading that is obscure. It seems like most of my papers are graded by ORSE/TRE/BSA inspectors. They tell you how screwed up and wrong your ideas and execution is, but rarely do you get comments on how to get better and improve your writing and thinking. This is the typical inspection line of "you need to figure out how to fix yourself, I am here to inspect."
3. Leadership that sets unrealistic goals. I have learned the human capacity of the number of pages one can read in a week. Not only am I expected to read up to 500 pages a week, but I am supposed to read it slowly and fully grasp what I read. I can keep up most weeks, but comprehending it all, not so much. I sometimes wonder what the reasoning behind purchasing 25 books a semester accomplishes other than making some theologian somewhere a ton of money. Subs taught me to push myself beyond my limits and this may be the purpose here, but it still hurts.
4. Competition. Here the competition is brutal among those wanting to get their PhD's. It is pretty interesting to watch. At least the competition I saw was among departments or other ships, never really between everyone in the same division.
5. Lofty Career expectations. There are many who want to be the next great theologian and are scheming to make that happen. I too have goals after here, but they mainly deal with trying to just get out there and preach to sailors and ministers.
6. Long Hours. I never expected to put this much time into studying. I don't think I have ever studied this much and I went to a fairly challenging engineering school (Georgia Tech). I think I spend about 60+ hrs/week working in a church and studying. Not as much as on board, but quite unexpected just like onboard. You never expect to pull a 100 hr week on board and no one will every tell you they occur frequently.
7. Crazy certification exams. I have to start studying this summer for my ordination exams. I have already passed one, the easy one they tell me, and have to take 4 more in August. Two three hour exams on a Friday, a three hour exam on a Saturday morning and then get a take home exam at noon that day that is due back the following Thursday. And like PNEO, there is a fairly good chance of failing a section and you can't go on in the career unless you pass all the sections.
8. Tight community. I had to put something positive in this. While I don't think my friendships here will be forged in the confines of a steel tube for 6 months, the suffering here does tend to bring people together like on a sub.
Well, I know this list will grow and change as time goes by. I am just running out of time as I need to actually get back and study. On another note, the site meter said last week was a record number of views of this web page. It had to be the submarine stuff on the site. Hopefully, the two or three of you keep coming back.
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