How structured is student life?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Military Academy - West Point
1

<p>I am a junior in high school and I have been doing a lot of research into West Point. I was wondering how structured student life there is. Is there a lot of time to just hang out and socialize and experience "college?" Or is everything scheduled tightly to keep students really busy? </p>

<p>I am fearful of going to a school and being so busy that I won't ever have time to make friends, travel (into, say, New York City), and experience things outside of school.</p>

<p>What do you guys think?</p>

2

<p>I'm not there yet, but I expect my days to be full of things that were planned by people other than myself. There are opportunities to travel with various clubs, and there's always weekend passes that you can earn. Maybe I should just let the current cadets talk...</p>

3

<p>You will have time to do stuff. Firsties routinely go on pass during the weekends. People involved in sports and clubs go on trip sections all the time. I can sometimes waste an hour or two during a night going at it in an email war (probably not the smartest of things).</p>

<p>The problem is, you will have a heck of a lot more on your plate than you ever thought possible. You make time by a sort of academic triage. You can't possibly complete everything, but you can select what actions to take for learning, passing, or earning As, depending on your goal. The first month or two can be rough when you don't know what you need to do. In theory you are supposed to prepare 2 hours for each one hour class, but, with 3 or four classes in one day, you are only guaranteed 4 hours of study time. It requires figuring out, but once you do, you start finding time at unthinkable moments.</p>

<p>A typical weekday schedule for me reads between 0600 and 0630 wake up, change/ 0655 breakfast formation, breakfast/ 0735 IT class/ 0840 Calculus/ 0935 hour off (study)/ 1050 Military Movement (A.K.A. Gymnastics)/ 1145 run run run shower change 15 minutes until lunch formation/ 1200 lunch formation, lunch/ 1245 M hour usually means an hour and a half off (to study) 1350 History/ 1445 hour off (try and study)/ 1600 Intramural grappling (if you don't do corps or club squad sports you have to do intramurals)/ 1700 off, study/ 1600 optional dinner/ 1630 "duties" (You can ask questions about this all you want, but I could never make you understand what this is.) 1730 Evening Study Period/ 0000 lights out.</p>

<p>There you have it, not too much fun on the weekdays, but you on the weekends, if you are getting enough done during the week, you can do some stuff.</p>

4

<p>I don't think you'll have to worry about making friends. My brother goes to WP and I was accepted to the class of 2011, and he has met the most amazing people. The thing about USMA is that everyone there is on the same page (or should be), because after your 4 years there, you and they will be in the Army, which is not everybody's cup of tea. When I visited Navy overnight on a weekend, and its summer seminar, everyone that i met had similar mentalities. What i mean by all this is that in my experiences, most people are easy to get along with and are people that you want to be friends with.</p>

5

<p>somexp's schedule is the norm for your plebe year. It's hectic, but you adapt and work around it. They don't "give" you free time in most cases, but you'll learn to "make" your own.</p>

6

<p>Making friends will not be an issue. I went to college before coming to USMA and I can tell you from personal experience, you will make many more friends here, but better yet you'll form those brother or sister-like friendships with quite a few people during summer training and on teams - the type of friends that most of us have only had couple of previously (if we're lucky!). You will know everyone in your beast platoon very well for a long time, even the ones that leave for some reason or another. Your plebe year companymates will be a team in itself, in addition to the intramural teams, clubs, corps squad teams, etc. that you find yourself involved with. Then you will form even more friendships with your new company during Buckner and yet another company from your yuk year on. Yes you will be busy but keep in mind that every activity you run back and forth from carries with it a group of friends. From what firsties have told us, you get acquainted with pretty much everyone in your class by the time you graduate - that's almost 1000 people, and just your class, you will also know many people from the classes before and after you. Grads tell us that on several occasions even overseas they have bumped into classmates.
Keep in mind that the plebe schedule is probably the busiest one of the four years, so that's not how your whole college experience will be. Academics pick up a bit but "duties" only happen plebe year, along with "orderlies" (waking up at 0530 to basically do chores- happens a week at a time once every three or four weeks) and "minutes" another lame plebe duty, so some more time frees up. Plenty of upperclassmen, especially firsties, have afternoons off and go golf or ski between lunch and intramurals or club practices.
As far as traveling goes, many clubs have trip sections to places nearby- NYC, Washington D.C., etc. all the time, and as a yuk and above you can take the train into NYC nearly every weekend (just not weekends set aside for training or special events).
Basically, you will be busy, especially your first year, but it will definitely be worth it and you'll make plenty of friends and travel quite a bit.</p>

7

<p>Are plebes allowed to do stuff like fish or play a round of 18 on the weekends? When I went on my football official visit my cadet guide said that you get the weekends free but he was an upper classman... If you do get time to do stuff do the upperclassmen heckle you on the weekends???</p>

8

<p>With the exception of the first month or so, most upperclassman don't enjoy harassing plebes; it's a waste of their time and yours. Show them the respect of following their rules (however idiotic and petty they may seem) and they'll leave you alone for the most part. This is especially true on the weekends, where people just want to relax. I think you can golf and stuff on the weekends as a plebe, but I've never actually done it. People I've talked to say the course is nice.</p>

9

<p>My roommate went golfing this Sunday, so it's definitely possible. I don't know if he broke any rules while doing it, but it seemed like no big deal. What might have been wrong was the fact that he put on civilian cloathes before he left. There are strict limitations on when a plebe can wear civilian cloathes, and I have almost never done it except on pass. Of course, there is no way you want to be golfing in white over gray, and no one ever does that, but this may be what the SOP technically requires.</p>

<p>To fish you just bring your gear up to Lusk Resevour and have at it. You absolutely can do that. You can also join the fly-fishing club, whose distro I can't seem to get off even though I never been present for one meeting or event.</p>

10

<p>how about the oppurtunities to visit other colleges and meet others? any other schools near the area?</p>

11

<p>You can go on a trip section to cheer for a USMA sports team and travel to other colleges for that purpose. After the game is over you have pass in the area of the college. Of course, this only allows you a weekend, but it's something.</p>

<p>You can even, if you're really smart, spend a semester abroad studying at a foreign college in another language.</p>

12

<p>Last time I read the regs, you can as a plebe wear civvies on the golf course, but they need to be appropriate (collared shirt, nice shorts). You can also wear them on the ski slope. I always skiied in civvies, never a problem, even when I ran into my COC. If you're not wearing civvies, you can golf in PTs.</p>

<p>My weekends as a plebe...Saturday - whatever mandatory stuff, nap, commissary/PX run, work out, home work, sleep. Sunday - Choir at 1030, brunch with the choir, go out and have fun in Highland falls, or go skiing, or bowling, or ice skating, work on homework, polish my shoes, learn the meals, duties, more homework, bed. </p>

<p>Now that the movie theatre's open again, that's an option on the weekends, too. </p>

<p>As an upperclassman, Weekends were even better :) Friday - last class, change, go to Palisades, have dinner, see a movie, shop a bit, come back...Saturday - Breakfast formation, Dunkin Donut run, then yearbook, lunch, get in my car and drive...Sunday, sleep in, choir, homework, take my car back up to the lots, sleep.</p>

<p>Now, as a 2LT...Friday's league night at the bowling alley. I go and cheer on my neighbors, and I'm signed up for next rotation. Not that I'm <em>any</em> good, but it'll be fun :) Saturday is spent exploring Uijeongbu or Seoul, this weekend I want to go buy fish for my aquarium and go to Blizzard's World Invitational in Seoul. Sunday I'll probably clean my apartment, and that night I'll prep cook for dinner for the week, maybe play some cards with the guys, and bake cookies or something....Life gets a lot better after high school. </p>

<p>On another note, y'all should be checking the <a href="http://www.usma.edu%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.usma.edu&lt;/a> website, becase next week is grad week and you can check out all the PICTURES!!!! I challenge you to find one of a firstie not smiling :-p</p>