TSUUNAMI - First 8 Years

TSUUNAMI's First 8 Years Plan

SAN FRANCISCO

In the first year, there should be enough students and staffing to prove the viability of the academy. Also, while the academy could and should affiliate with accredited major state and local learning institutions, it should not be displaced by them or subsumed by them. They have courses which need not be duplicated by students at TSUUNAMI, and TSUUNAMI will have courses they currently do not teach or would find prohibitively expensive to have on offer.

Formerly, Naval Architecture taught at University of California, Berkeley included naval warships/combatants and other topics, and had a Navy ROTC course. Due to local politics, and other matters, UC Berkeley's Navy ROTC unit was disbanded. The entire campus for years has undergone a structural and academic transformation. Regionally, due to the BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure Commission) recommendations and fiscal realities, several naval stations and port, various military bases, closed out tens of thousands of off-base housing facilities around the country from 1989 through 2005. Even major shipyards, such as at Hunter's Point closed or went into drastic downsizing or engaged in more civilian work that might enable sustained business operations.

KOREA

Technically and factually, in Korea, there is no shortage of widespread, corporate-funded, industrial-strength vocational schools. However, there is no denying that many Koreans who study English, at great expense to themselves, their families, and their friendships, in terms of money, time, and career satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Of many of my Korean friends who studied, some find themselves not able to use on a daily, professional, rewarding basis the English skills they for several years paid for. For many students, attending a "hagwon" (also "hogwon", and other spellings) -- extra, after-school studies -- from youth through adult years is just a rote exercise. The younger kids I met at museums and other places were eager and brave in practicing their English on me. It was a heartwarming experience, seeing these kids in their youth picking up and absorbing and using English. In my youth, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and Vietnamese were not even options -- all we had were the Romantic European languages. And, many of us, as are Koreans, Japanese, and students around the world, required to take a foreign language. Spanish was my only alternative of interest, and I did very poorly at it.

But, what is frustrating for so many (very many, too many) Koreans who invested in English is the dearth of English-usage opportunities in the workplace.

ADMISSIONS AND SCREENING

Admissions

In TSUUNAMI Korea, I would differentiate the learning environment in several ways:

-- Students will use English all day, everyday, during school hours or in the classes<br>
-- Software used will be the English-only versions<br>
-- Students will write reports, make business plans, and rationalize their assignments and plans in English<br><br>

The will communicate their understanding of their plans and assignments to Korean and non-Korean staff who will be required to be extraordinarily fluent in English and neither the staff of Korean or USA origin will be allowed to fake or finesse their ways into the postings of the campus. It is no secret that some Koreans -- in the name of competition, desperation, success, and so on -- have cheated their ways into and out of courses of various topics, to the disadvantage of those who worked hard and earned better scores without resorting to cheating. It also is no secret that there still are -- no matter what is stated publicly -- some number of legally/technically unqualified teachers of English in Korea, Japan, and even China. However, I understand from conversation with some people, that China is a bit more demanding and screening of English teachers due to the diploma printing mills and faked credentials that still can be had. At TSUUNAMI, it will not matter that that staff are degree holders or not (depending on their roles), but that they are competent. A degree is a fine thing to have, but not everyone can have one, and not everyone should have one. I believe that, and even former President Lee said so. There are far more graduates chasing jobs that their degrees were supposed to help them find, yet many companies are hiring focus-trained high school graduates for two main reasons: their pays are lower and their roles do not require all the background and expense associated with obtaining a college, 4-year degree.

Screening

Another differentiation will be that TSUUNAMI will attract and enroll those who cannot enter the traditional Korean vocational education system. Specifically, these will be generally poor individuals:

-- Those who are just past the entry age for free education
-- Those who are well past the age of changing careers but who need to
-- Those who are terminated from jobs
-- Those who want to specifically enter the marine industry
-- Those who are within one to two years of entering military service and have exhausted any delays they may have legally exercised. But exemptions can be made if cognizant authorities in the Military Manpower Administration confirm with the admissions process that an applicant is not going to be pulled from studies.

(Alternatively, since some conscripts serve out their time working with construction, police, and other civic or civil assignments, it may be possible that some of these conscription-bound students can be allowed to complete school and then join the military or a military-supporting function that can best employ their schooling and skills acquired. The point is to avoid wasting the time slot that another, similarly qualified applicant can occupy.)


Qualification or certification will require a certain amount of government help to:

-- Screen out those who are not poor
-- Give priority to those who have paid their taxes
-- Establish records and audit trails to demonstrate individual poverty or underemployment
-- Obtain biometric information to prevent substitution of self or others in the academic setting (Korea already makes far more use of biometric information than the USA and could to some extent be a role model. Their national ID cards would be a matter of contention in the USA, but consolidation of information eases all sorts of matters that eventually become problems for those having multiple forms of credentials or identification when one suitable instrument would simplify things)


Screened out would in some cases by necessity include those who would be a criminal recidivist threat to the safety of the school

Students would be aged from 18 or 19 to 33, in order to graduate on a 2- or 4-year academic track. This would favor those who may not have made the cut for free government education assistance (as I understand things, Korea really spends money on students too poor to attend on their own or their families' poor incomes, something which reportedly fuels resentment among some Koreans. However, such responses are in any culture.)


STUDENT BODY and FACULTY AND STAFF MIX

Student Body

The student body would consist of:

-- 100 - 140 domestic students the first year
-- 40 - 60 foreign students the first year



This make up or ratio is to test the viability of the initial academic structure and to allow for some fine-tuning in which it is likely to see fewer students graduate the first year than expected. Some may be held back, rolled back, quit on their own, or be called up to military service.

Faculty/Staff Mix




The Faculty and Staff would nominally be composed of:

-- President (1)
-- Vice President (1)
-- Chair of the Board (1)
-- Board of Directors (key employees and key investors)
-- Drafting Instructors (5)
-- Software Developers/Programmers (4)
-- Operations Director (1)
-- Academics Director (1)
-- Human Relations Manager (1)
-- HR Specialists (2)
-- HR/Career Generalists (2)
-- Community Relations Representative
-- Accountant (1)
-- Bookkeeper (1)
-- Payroll Manager (1)
-- Site Security Manager (1)
-- Facilities Director (1)
-- IT/Data Security Director (1)
-- IT Staff/Employees (5) (5 per 90 employees/students)
-- Naval and Industrial Guest Representatives (2-4)



DRAWINGS/DESIGNS

I have designed on paper to varying levels of detail some eight naval ships:

-- Cruisers (2)
-- Destroyers (2)
-- Frigate types (4)

I have also designed 5 nuclear submarines, parts of 3 amphibious ships, and several space ships (from the Star Trek universe), all in the 1980s.

The students who chose to be Cadets would spend 25% of their academic 4 years-study time on their chosen or assigned paper design. They would learn:

-- Drafting
-- Space planning
-- Weight distribution and management
-- Hull fairing and resistance reduction,
-- Powering
-- Stability, and
-- Payload requirements

Key to and possibly paramount over all other considerations will be:
-- The ease of maintenance and access to maintenance areas, the ability to spatially relocate design and actual compartment equipment. for example, equipment racks might be winched up, and monorail-moved to other compartments or even up or down decks during cyclical major overhauls and updates. Passageways might be wider than found in USN destroyers, and refurbishment might be effected faster with less hull cutting via the use of extra numbers of soft patches, more vertical shafts that double as escape trunks, and increased volume of the hull.

However, not all students will want to work on combatants. so, there will also be the opportunity for students not strictly pursuing military vessels to work on passenger liner, cruise ship, and ferry vessels as well as tug and river craft. (As a teen, I used to visit travel agencies displaying cruise ship brochures in their windows and ask for the brochures. I noticed that many of the cabin and stateroom arrangements were very similar to those in Warp-capable passenger ships and tugs that were designed by Star Trek fans who created them for their board games. So, that inspired me to design maybe 5 ships that were a combination of Star Trek and Space: 1999 people-ferrying vessels.)

In the first year, the students would be divided into 4 sections, and one ship design would apply to each section. As for royalties, probably the school would pay me, and then the students would receive rights to their own or their team works, so they can create portfolios through which to market themselves as future employees, as consultants/contractors, and even as lone artists. Either the school would buy in bulk, or per-year assign a license to actual students. Their tasks would include improving upon the works assigned as best as possible by:

-- Using Classification Society rules
-- Interacting with in-school instructors
-- Interacting with cleared/authorized Naval officers
-- Interacting with cleared/authorized ship building industry representatives

In year one, 4 designs would be exposed to the students, possibly 2 military and 2 civilian. These students would be obligated to stay with that design an not switch around unless they demonstrate themselves to be very adept and are doing so as upper class students acting in a mentor capacity for junior academy mates.

In year two, 4 more or my designs (original or course-oriented) would be exposed to the following year's class. Years three and 4 would follow suit.

Such a program and pattern should bring students into line with industry design concepts and practices. However, to the extent possible, the students will use Open Source software designed in-house, or will use proprietary, ship-builder-designed software, but only if it does not incur the overhead or additional costs of buying software titles that cost $10,000 per seat, even if free. If the students strike out as freelancers, some will not be in student status anymore, and expensive software only encourages piracy.

Therefore, another activity in the campus would be the creation of a new ship design program as I have envisioned and have been mapping out in my mind and in writing. I plan for it to be a revolutionary, not merely evolutionary, step forward. It is not to trivialize the ship design and naval architecture field, but to help make their lives easier and work proceed faster for the CAD operators, too.


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