#103 From Plebe Summer to Academic Year

From Dawn to Dusk The Midshipmans Daily Journey Unveiled

As the academic year kicks off at the United States Naval Academy, I'm excited to share insights into the daily life of midshipmen, especially for our new plebes. In this episode, we'll explore the significant changes from plebe summer to the academic year, providing context and perspective for parents and supporters.

What You'll Discover in This Episode

• • The daily schedule and battle rhythm in Bancroft Hall
• • New developments like the Trident Period and Steel PT program
• • Changes to plebe training and discipline approaches
• • Insights on napping policies and academic priorities

Key Schedule Highlights

We'll walk through the typical weekday schedule, from early morning workouts to evening study periods. You'll learn about:

• • Morning formations and meal procedures
• • Class schedules and the new Trident Period
• • Athletic and extracurricular time blocks
• • Evening accountability and liberty policies

Evolving Traditions and New Programs

I'll share my perspective on how certain aspects of midshipman life have changed since my time at the Academy, including:

• • The shift away from physical punishments
• • Implementation of the Steel PT program
• • Changes to plebe training methods
• • New approaches to time management and recovery

What Parents Should Know

• • How the academic schedule differs from plebe summer
• • Ways the Academy is prioritizing physical and mental well-being
• • Changes to discipline and training philosophies
• • Opportunities for liberty and personal time

This episode offers valuable context for understanding your midshipman's daily experience as they navigate the transition from plebe summer to the academic year. Whether you're a current pare

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The mission of Academy Insider is to guide, serve, and support Midshipmen, future Midshipmen, and their families.

Grant Vermeer your host is the person who started it all. He is the founder of Academy Insider and the host of The Academy Insider podcast. He was a recruited athlete which brought him to Annapolis where he was a four year member of the varsity basketball team. He was a cyber operations major and commissioned into the Cryptologic Warfare Community. He was stationed at Fort Meade and supported the Subsurface Direct Support mission.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Academic Year Transition
• 3:38 Daily Battle Rhythm and Schedule
• 8:58 STEAL PT Program and Morning Workouts
• 17:47 The Trident Period Explained
• 30:09 Meals in King Hall and Kings Court
• 35:44 Study Period and Evening Accountability
• 40:44 Plebe Training Program Changes
• 47:32 Final Thoughts and Conclusion

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

All right, welcome back to the On the Yard series here on the Academy Insider Podcast, powered by the Naval Academy Alumni Association and Foundation, and in this episode we are so excited to talk about the shift from Plebe Summer to the academic year. Now I know it's been a couple of weeks since Plebe Summer and so you've probably started to hear stories. You've heard your Plebe tell you about what's going on during the academic year and I'm excited just to talk a little bit about it to provide context, understanding and perspective into everything that's going on. We're going to talk about the daily battle rhythm of what's happening in Bancroft Hall on the yard for all of the midshipmen. We're going to talk about the plebe training program. We're going to talk about napping right, like there are a lot of things that are going on that we're very excited to have conversations about. We're going to talk and discuss a little bit about the Trident period, this new Trident period that you may be hearing about, as well as the Steel PT program, two things that are very different than from when I was a midshipman, so I'm excited to talk about them, talk about pros and cons, talk about kind of my opinion on some of the things and jump into it. So looking forward to it. I hope you enjoy the episode, as always.

Speaker 1: 0:57

If you have any questions, let me know. Otherwise, enjoy the lesson, all right? Well, well, let's jump right into it again. We're going to start with the overall battle rhythm of what is happening on the day-to-day during the academic year for the midshipmen. Now we're going to put a focus on plebes. Obviously, everyone cares about the plebes and so we will talk about the plebes. But a lot of this stuff will relate to like all midshipmen across all four years and kind of how things operate and function. So again, I'm excited about it. We're going to start with like the Monday to Friday schedule. I have my calendar over here, so if I'm looking over here, just give it. Give me some grace there for not looking directly at the camera and for the audio listeners. Sorry for wasting your time, but again, we're going to start with like Monday to Friday schedule and then kind of make our way a little bit Saturday and Sunday as well.

Speaker 1: 1:45

But this is going to be a focus on the routine events. This is what's happening, and we talked a lot about what was going on during plebe summer. Now it's time to talk about the shift to the academic year, how that impacts the lives of the plebes, what's going on, provide a little bit of context and understanding and perspective into the day-to-day life of a midshipman during the academic year. So again, monday to Friday, your day's really going to start no earlier than 5.30 am, literally like guidance in the Naval Academy, like in mid-regs, like thou shall not wake plebes up before 5.30 am, and not every morning's going to start that early, but mornings can start that early because there is a workout block on the schedule between 5.40 and 6.30 am. Now that block says Plebe Workouts per the STEAL guidance.

Speaker 1: 2:31

Steal is this new workout program that is in its first year. It's undergoing kind of this first iteration with a lot going on. So I'm excited to talk a little bit about it. Because this is one of those things when we take a look at, like now versus then, what happened when I was a midshipman and even further in the past, what was happening in the Nail Academy versus what is happening today, is very different. And so, again, plead Workouts per the STEAL guidance is really interesting. Because what this new STEAL program is is it's really designed to provide like a real format, a real structure, a real workout plan and guidance to help the midshipmen develop their physical fitness right.

Speaker 1: 3:09

In the past again for me we had our training staff. So, again, normally second-class midshipmen, junior midshipmen that have no physical fitness like training under certification whatsoever, they were in charge of making up the workouts for plebe workouts, right, and so you have a bunch of like juniors in college who have no idea really what they're doing, who are like putting the plebes through workouts and like they were usually tough, yes, but were they productive? Probably not. We had no idea what we're doing, like they weren't planning and structuring workouts in a way that we're actually going to promote and develop physical fitness, especially for the plebes. And so this is a really interesting thing. We're now under steel guidance, basically midshipmen who have some sort of like physical fitness certification, training designation, as well as the PE department at the Naval Academy, are developing workout plans for midshipmen that don't otherwise have a workout plan prescribed to them, meaning right, like if you're a varsity athlete, like the football team, the basketball team, all the varsity athletic teams they have their own workout programs, like they're going through strength and conditioning with their own programs, so they're not really a part of this Same thing with other like clubs, activities et cetera, that are going through workout programs. They have that for the gray area of midshipmen that don't necessarily have a prescribed workout plan for them. They will now have that designated through the Steel PT program and it's designed it's weightlifting, running, swimming, overall fitness to help prepare them to pass a PRT. Right, and I think this is actually a really cool thing Because, again, going back to when I was a plebe, you would just have a bunch of random second class men shipment that were like beating the leaves down, like we go out there like doing crazy thing, bear crawling up and down the fields, ripping our hands up, like doing tough stuff, army crawling across the field, like was it tough, was it difficult?

Speaker 1: 4:53

Did it make plebeians suck? Yeah for sure. Um, but was it helping us pass the prt? I don't know. Like maybe right, maybe I don't know, but, um, it's interesting. Again, this is going to be a first year thing is this idea of the steel pt program and it's different than how we did it in the past and I'm excited to see kind of some of the results and how things come out of this and when it comes to performance of the prt, like how things change or are different, like start to see some metrics, um, you know, as we provide real guidance in the morning workout program for midshipmen and so, anyway, plebes have that from 540 to 630, right 50 minute block to get a morning workout in, which is really interesting.

Speaker 1: 5:36

Now, a lot of times, you know, again, these workouts are not always going to be like five days a week, so there may be one or two days that are off from workouts and during that time they can use that, usually again a little bit on the later half, closer to 6.30, as an optional come around period for plebes to do some training of professional knowledge. If you hear the term come around or professional knowledge or pronoun, you have no idea what I'm talking about. We will do a further episode on you know, some of the plebe duties and things that are going on during plebe year specifically. I've also actually done an episode and you should go back and check out the Academy Insider podcast of the past where I talk all about pro. Now we do an entire episode about professional knowledge and what it is and how it's executed, et cetera. So I highly recommend you go check it out Because, again, you can have that optional come around period in the morning or like kind of an additional military instruction period during the morning to go.

Speaker 1: 6:30

The next thing is morning quarters formation at 7am and so you start your day off again with MQF morning quarters formation where everyone kind of gets together, you line up in your you know in the P way in, you know in your company spaces, in the p way in, you know in your company spaces, and you basically do an accountability report. Your squad leader just make sure that everyone is accounted for and present and in uniform and healthy and okay, um, and that'll kind of start off your day. You go there for morning meal, you sit down and you have breakfast. Now there are some times and it kind of happens again you have listed on this schedule here rolling tray morning meal when designated. So one of the things that I want to talk about and we'll do a full episode, a full deep dive on a later episode which I'm really excited about, about King Hall and not, like you know, no shade to like the Business Insider and all this other stuff that do like cool videos about King Hall and how we serve all these people. Yeah, it's awesome.

Speaker 1: 7:22

I really want to do a deep dive about what all these terms mean. When you hear a rolling tray, when you hear sitting at squat tables, varsity tables, king's Court, what are all these ways you can eat in King Hall, and so again. Anyway, some of these mornings, instead of a morning quarter's formation, depending on what's going on during the day, you could have a rolling tray in the morning from 6.30 to 8, meaning like you can go down and eat breakfast anytime in an hour and a half period. You go, you sit down. You're not like sitting in your company with your squad at a table. Basically, rolling trade just means like you go down there, you go to the next available table. Like it's kind of like going in sequential order and format and like 10 midshipmen sit down at a table. As soon as 10 midshipmen are sat, then like the staff comes over and delivers the food and then you move to the next table, right, and so that's a really interesting piece of it.

Speaker 1: 8:08

But kind of moving through Morning quarters formation is an interesting one. Again, this is where, like, your company culture will make a difference, right, because, like what's on the schedule, what may happen for everybody is morning quarters formation. What that formation actually looks like maybe very dependent on who the leadership is, what's going on at the academy, like who your company officers are, etc. Right, because I've had times where, again, even for me as a midshipman, like one of the years, we had a SWO as a company officer and, you know, morning quarters formation was like kind of whatever like it, just it just was. We all showed up, made sure everyone was alive and, like you know, morning quarters formation was like kind of whatever, like it just was. We all showed up, made sure everyone was alive and, like you know, passed out any announcements for the day. Literally the company commander stands in front of everyone and is like all right, we got X, y and Z today, or this is what's going on, here are the announcements, blah, blah, blah. But then there are times where we had a Marine Corps officer who was our company officer and formation like totally changed. It was like way different and there were like uniform inspections way more frequently at morning quarters formation. There was a lot of stuff going on like things were way more structured and way more formatted, and so you may get difference of opinion and difference of experience in that formation period. Again, that's going to be very dependent on your company culture, on your leadership, etc. Period. And again that's going to be very dependent on your company culture, on your leadership, et cetera. So again, that's kind of what's happening in the morning.

Speaker 1: 9:29

One of the things that I want to touch on, because I had done a previous episode about the academic like the classroom experience in Annapolis. You should go check out that episode anyway. It's incredible. Sarah Riley is a dear friend of mine. She does a great job explaining what the classroom experience is like. But in that episode we talk about like the actual schedule to the class schedule and literally since last year that has changed. So at the Naval Academy they did a trial period last year after spring break where they incorporated something that's known as the Trident period. They did that trial period again last year, spring break to the end of the year and decided it was executing the way they wanted it to. So they incorporated it like full on for this year. So the Trident period is it currently is. If it stays, who knows, but it is what it is right now and what this Trident period is.

Speaker 1: 10:19

It's a longer period, right after lunch, and so previously, like before, you know, the end of last year and this year the class schedule started at 7.55. Your first period started at 7.55 am and then you would go in. Your first lunch period started at 1.30 pm and so again, you would go first period from 7.55 to 8.45,. Second period, 8.55, you know through. Third period at 9.55,. Fourth period at 10.55 until 11.45. You know you wouldn't have formation until 12.05. Lunch would generally run from like 12.15 to 12.45. And then you had a class again at 13.30. So like you really had a pretty short timeframe to kind of do anything in that lunch period, in order to extend the lunch period, they incorporated it and really called it the Trident period. And so what happened is they shifted the first class of the day up 10 minutes and they shifted that after lunch period back 10 minutes to give 20 extra minutes during the lunch period.

Speaker 1: 11:27

And so now first period starts at 7.45 and goes to 8.35. Second period starts at 8.45 and goes to 9.35. Third period, 9.45 to 10.35. Fourth period, 10.45 to 11.35. Now formation is at 11.55, which puts lunch from 12.05. Again, you generally assume people will be seated by 12.05 after announcements, and then goes until 12.30. Now during this T period is now you have basically 12.30 until 13.30, like a full hour of period to do stuff and we'll leave stuff ambiguous because it's literally designated certain days of the week, like your trident period is supposed to be um, for academic purposes, uh, and then other days for military, quite literally, tuesday, friday, are meant for academic meaning. Like that hour period is designated for midshipmen to go to extra instruction, designated for midshipmen to go and complete extra homework. Designated to go and like, take care of your academic situation, right. Like you have a full extra hour where teachers are available, where tutors are available to take care of your academic situation.

Speaker 1: 12:33

Wednesday and Thursday are for military training. Again, we talk a lot or I guess I have talked in the past a lot about noon meal trainings. Like you would go as a plebe and again you would have, like your plebe done your plebe life would really be experienced in that noon meal trainings. Like you would go as a plebe and again you would have, like your plebe done your plebe life would really be experienced in that noon meal training. You'd still be practicing prono, going through rates, getting dropped. Like doing all these trainings, like all that would happen during the noon meal training. So that Wednesday to Thursday is now still like the military focused noon meal training. Again, I'm sure it does a lot of prono. A lot of things are happening kind of in the realm of professional knowledge development, maybe doing board signature sheets, whatever the case is, kind of falls into that period. And then Monday is shared, meaning it can be kind of any of the above.

Speaker 1: 13:17

Now what's really interesting about the Trident period? Again like why you know what I mean Like again a lot of the stuff that happens in the military. We kind of ask like why, like why do that? Because now again the day starts at 7.45. The day starts earlier and now your fifth period doesn't start until 13.40, 1.40 pm, which means your end of the day, instead of being 3.20 pm, is now 3.30 pm. So you start your day 10 minutes earlier, you minutes earlier, you end your day 10 minutes later, but you have this extra period in the middle. So like why? And this is an interesting one, because there's a couple of like differing opinions and I think there's a little bit of a shared center I guess maybe not shared split sentiment in the brigade about like whether this is a good thing or not.

Speaker 1: 13:56

The whole purpose of this articulated like why articulate, but a lot of people is to reduce the burden of events that have to happen after the evening meal, right, a lot of times, and I remember being a midshipman, the worst thing in the world was like you knowing that, like after dinner you were going to have to go to a forestall lecture at night, or after dinner you're going to have to go to a speaker series at night, or you're going to have to go to some kind of event after dinner. There's like nothing worse than at the end of the day. And again, like midshipmen fall asleep all of the freaking time. Well, again, maybe when I was a midshipman, people fall asleep all of the time during forestall lectures. Cause who? Do you imagine going through an entire day as a midshipman? You eat dinner, your belly's full, and now you have to walk over to alumni hall and listen to someone give like an hour long presentation on something.

Speaker 1: 14:46

And again, the forestall lectures are super cool. Like they are like in retrospect. When you step away you're like how cool was it to have that person of such high prestige? Or like, whatever the case is, come speak to us as midshipmen Incredible opportunity. But when you're a midshipman you're just so tired. All you care about is survival. Dude Like I, how are you supposed to listen to. Like some impressive person Give a talk, like yeah, like this is cool, thank you. But like I'm tired, like I have so much homework to do, and like what's going on, right, and so, from that perspective, I love this idea of the Trident period, because if you can shift a forestall lecture from happening at 7 PM from to 8 to 8 pm to like from 12.30 to 1.30 in the afternoon, like that's awesome, like that's really good, but it's also really difficult to execute on because, like the varsity athletic teams, they practice at lunch, they need to practice at lunch.

Speaker 1: 15:38

They again, as a basketball player, like we would have our film at lunch, right, we would have morning workouts. We would do our strength and conditioning in the mornings before school, like during that workout period, basketball we would go and have we'd have morning workouts. During lunch we would watch film of practice from the day before or a game from the day before, whatever the case is, like we would watch film during lunch. So that way, as soon as we were done with class at 3.20 in the afternoon, we would go over back to alumni hall and then we would have practice. Like you would practice from 3.30 to 6 and then you'd have dinner and so again, like, from my perspective, I was like always wanting extra time, but it's a long way to say.

Speaker 1: 16:15

It also causes conflict, this trident period, because the athletes still get excusals and there are like four levels of athlete excusals, like in-season varsity athlete, varsity athlete, out of season, club athlete. Like there are a bunch of different levels of who's excused from what during the trident period. But it may be difficult execution, right, and so I'm really interested to see how it plays out Because, again, I think in theory it's an incredible idea. Nobody wants to do everything. They're trying to protect the midshipman study period, they're trying to protect midshipman sleep, right. Like these are things that are really important and I really believe that the episode I did with John Kordo about sleep at the Naval Academy, like it's so important that midshipmen are not causing lifelong effects from persistent and prolonged sleep deprivation while at the Naval Academy, because it's going to happen in the fleet too. So like we got to like not kill our people, literally, right.

Speaker 1: 17:10

So I love this idea of the trident period, but the execution could be really difficult, because now it's like all right, well, how do you execute this lunch period If you're telling midshipman X that they have to be there at lunch, but midshipman Y gets an excusal like that's hard because at least at night everyone had to go. Right, like there was no excusal. There was nothing at 7 pm on a Wednesday that like every midshipman couldn't go to, and so you had more equity when it was in the evening in terms of like everyone had to be there. But when it's at lunch it's like better overall, but like certain people aren't able to be there and that can be difficult from like balancing, you know the sentiment of the brigade like oh my gosh, these varsity athletes, they don't even have to go to anything because they're just practicing all the time. Right, like all that stuff is happening and so I don't envy, you know, the leadership and trying to figure this out, I am really interested to see how it plays out Because again it was articulated that the whole purpose of Trident Period was to save midshipmen's evenings from having to go to obligated maybe mandatory obligations, better spoken but that hasn't actually been the truth.

Speaker 1: 18:16

Like they've still done their forestall lectures and stuff in the evening. So now it's like well, we have this Trident Period, but you're still making us go at the end of the night, like what are we doing right? And so anyway, that's a really interesting thing that's happening at the Academy right now is this again this first year of Steel PT and this first year of the trident period, and so I'm really interested to see how those things play out Again. Ideologically, I think they make a ton of sense right, like I love the idea. From a pure theoretical, like idea stage it makes a ton of sense. The Steel PT program we're helping midshipmen pass the PRT, we're doing things to make sure that they're on a structured workout program to actually help their physical development, to help them improve with their physical fitness. Love it.

Speaker 1: 19:02

Execution, who knows, still may be tough. Same thing with the trident period. I love this desire to protect the evenings of midshipmen, like after evening meal. You know you can just focus on your schoolwork, you can just focus on taking care of your academics, but in practice it's still hard to execute, like there are things that are really difficult to bring to life and make sure that they actually still work. And so I'm really interested to see how those factors play out in the academic year, what things continue, what things kind of revert back to the way they were, or not or like, whatever the case is. So all that stuff is super interesting to me. If you have any questions about that or if you have comments, please let me know, like, send me messages, whatever the case is. I'm interested to hear more people's opinions on all that because that stuff's really interesting.

Speaker 1: 19:51

All right, so again you go through then the end of the day, fifth and sixth period and then you go to the athletic reserve period. So the athletic reserve period is now a blocked time for fitness, right. And so again, varsity athletes at their practice time. Again, a lot of club athletes actually have like an active reserve period a little bit later in the evening because hypothetically, let's say, you're like on the jujitsu team or something like that. It technically isn't like a varsity sport. So a lot of the people who like do jujitsu or whatever the case is as an activity still have to participate in intramurals, and so that's been a really interesting thing.

Speaker 1: 20:26

I've also gotten reports that like intramurals are starting to get a little bit more um, serious again, like they're taking them serious. They kind of shifted from company level like company, like the companies run um the intramural program, to now the battalions run the intramural program. So it's just kind of one step up in organization and structure and it sounds like they're becoming a little bit more serious, a little bit more intentional, and so that's an interesting piece. But that's what's happening during the athletic reserve period there for midshipmen, right, like that's another time to go work out, right, again, the plebes are going to work out per their steel guidance in the morning. A lot of the upperclassmen aren't going to wake up to work out at 540 in the morning. They're going to save their workout for that athletic reserve period in the afternoon, right, and so that's happening. And again, this steel guidance the quote unquote steel guidance isn't just for plebes. Like the pleb workouts will happen per steel guidance in the morning. But the midshipmen, who kind of fall into that category again of not being an athlete et cetera, who don't have some kind of structured workout program, are still following under the steel program now. But they can do the workouts whenever they want. But they still have accountability need to check in that they're actually completing their workouts, all right.

Speaker 1: 21:43

After that you have evening meal. Evening meal runs from 1730 or 5.30 pm for you civilian types, for you non-military types until 7 pm. So we kind of talked about it a little bit with breakfast, but again, 5.30 to 7 pm, evening meal Monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday is rolling tray. So again, at the end of the day, the midshipmen are not going back and getting back into uniform. Again, a lot of times, rolling tray, the uniform is blue and golds. So instead of being in like your working blues uniform, you're in blue and golds, which is like that sweatsuit that you see. It's like the blue sweatsuit with the Naval Academy crest on their, like breast pocket and then usually their name and their classier on the other side.

Speaker 1: 22:24

Um and so, again, rolling tray, you can go there. So again, instead of having like a formalized sit down time, you have an hour and a half, which is great. Again, a lot of times, as an athlete, like we weren't able to get over there at 5 30 PM we were still practicing. Practice started at five or at three 30. So like we are practicing from three.30 till 5.30 or 3.30 till 6. And then you have to shower and change and get ready and go over. So a lot of times the athletes like myself, like we're rolling in at 8.45 or yeah, excuse me like 6.45, 18.45. Thank you, 6.45 PM, like right at the end of that rolling tray period Again, when you have rolling tray, you're literally walking in and they'll kind of like set all right, table one is, you know, at X corner of the room and then we're just going sequentially down the line of like all right, first 10 people to show up sit here.

Speaker 1: 23:08

Then you fill in the next table and the next table and the next table as a plebe. A lot of times, like if you're showing up, you got to request permission to sit to the most senior midshipman who's at that table, but it's usually super informal dude Again, like when you're at Rolling Tray at that point, like it's not, like some upper class midshipman is going to be like no, you can't sit down. Like if you're like sir midshipman fourth class, blah, blah, blah, request that before you even finish they're like yeah, no, take your seats, guys, take your seats, enjoy dinner. Like eat and get out of here. And so that's what's happening during Rolling Tray.

Speaker 1: 23:38

Now what's interesting is Interesting is Friday's meal. Friday's evening meal is in Kings Court. Now, kings Court is the best dude. I love Kings Court and I had to eat in Kings Court all the time because we're going to talk about it in a second. Saturday morning breakfast is always in Kings Court as well, and, as a basketball player, our season we play games on Saturdays and so a lot of times we'd have a Saturday afternoon game, which means we would eat breakfast in Kings Court. So, like, instead of getting to go on Liberty as an upperclassman and be away and eat breakfast in town or eat breakfast in DC, or go spend the weekend, friday to Sunday, at my sponsors like I was still sleeping in Bancroft Hall because we had to be up for like a shoot around in the morning and then we'd have a game, and so I ate in Kings Court all the time.

Speaker 1: 24:20

Now, what is King's Court? This is kind of the whole purpose of it. Like, what is King's Court? So there's like a little like inlet, a little cove within King's Hall and it's called King's Court, and King's Court is really like a buffet. So instead of like a normal meal or rolling tray where they deliver food to serve family style at your table, king's Court is like a buffet. Like you walk up, you walk into Kings Court and you're able to pick what you wanna eat.

Speaker 1: 24:48

And again, I love breakfast because they usually do eggs to order. Because, again, when you're eating rolling tray, when you're serving 4,000 people at the same time. Like you're just getting the like the powdered eggs delivered in a big tin can to scoop onto your plate, like you're eating at the residence in. You know what I mean. Like it's just, it's not great, but Kings court, during the weekends, kings court, they have like they're making eggs to order. You get a little like I get three eggs over medium on a Saturday, like dude, that's a huge win. And so you get like eggs to order. In the morning you have all your like uh again, breakfast is like uh, pancakes, waffles, a full buffet of fruits and pastries and stuff. Like it's actually legit, like I love.

Speaker 1: 25:28

Like Kings Court was good, and so that piece is really interesting because again, friday evening, kings Court, they're able to do that. Again. They're saving Kings Court for times where there are way less midshipmen. Right Friday evening, you assume that all of the second class and first class midshipmen are leaving. Like they're going on liberty, like they're going to eat dinner in town, going to their sponsors, going to visit friends, like whatever the case is, like they're leaving, and so, instead of having to cook for 4,400 midshipmen, maybe you're only cooking for 2,000 midshipmen and so you're able to like do it in Kings court, right and so, um, that's always, that's interesting. So again, friday evening would be actually a Kings court meal. The rest of the time it's rolling tray. Sit down, get served family style, all right. Um, then after then, after meal, you have study period.

Speaker 1: 26:17

Uh, it's a four hour block 1900 to 2300,. 7 pm to 11 pm is study period, and study period is interesting. Like study period, we call it study period. It's not as formal as people make it out to be.

Speaker 1: 26:38

As a plebe, it may be like they may make as plebes. They may make you put your phone like out into the hallway during study period to make sure you're not on your phone during study period but like actually working or doing homework. And that's why a lot of plebs don't stay on deck, that's why you just like as a pleb, you don't, you're not gonna want to actually go and be a part of this whole thing. Like, why would I stay in Bancroft Hall when I can go study in the library or go study in an academic building? Because then I can keep my phone on me, I can get away, I don't have to deal with like upperclassmen shipment because again during study period, you can be in a couple of like pre-approved locations. You can be in the library, you can be in an academic building, you can be in Bancroft Hall.

Speaker 1: 27:17

There's actually a list in mid regs of like places you're allowed to be um during study period, but again, a lot of times, you know, I would spend my time in the library or other places because there's just less distractions. Again, when you're in bancroft hall you got the people who like again, god bless them, love them who like get their homework done at like 8, 30, and now they're like they want to socialize, like they're coming into your room to like hang out and you're like dude, I don, I don't want to hang out, I actually have homework to do still and so, uh, so yeah, study period uh kind of goes, but you, you have like all that happening um in the evening. Two final things um, in terms of like the schedule and the day to day, uh, taps this term taps I have no idea what taps actually stands for, but taps is the accountability like report. At the end of the day, before you go to bed, you need to be back on your deck in Bancroft hall and sign the tap sheet which indicates like I am back on the company spaces, in my room where I'm supposed to be, and I'm alive, like I signed a piece of paper saying all of that. Because then each company reports to the battalion that like, hey, our entire company is present and accounted for, everyone is safe and good. And then it goes up, battalion reports to the regiment, regiment reports to the battalion or to the brigade staff, and then the brigade reports like to the officer of the watch or to the um, to the brigade staff, and then the brigade reports like to the officer of the watch, like literally the officer of the watch, and say like hey, sir, the entire brigade is present and accounted for, everyone is is where they're supposed to be, everyone is okay, there are no issues, right and um.

Speaker 1: 30:17

Because if something is wrong like that's when you find out, like an officer of the watch of like something's off, like the officer of the watch then has to go investigate, like try and figure it out and like make a report to the commandant if something's off. But that's the purpose for taps. You're basically signing and indicating that like you are where you're supposed to be, that you're back on deck at the end of the day and like in your room and ready for the next day. That usually happens, like plebs are usually required to sign that by 10 PM, at 2200. And then upperclassmen have until like 11 PM, 2300 to sign. And that was always the funniest thing, dude Cause, like there was nothing worse than like being in the zone in, like the I'm like in the library typing on a paper or like whatever the case is, working on something. You look down at your watch and you're like it's like 10 52 and you know it's like a 10minute walk back to your company spaces and you're like, oh no, dude, we got to go. We got to go now Because they take it seriously. They want those reports to happen right at 11 pm. So there are times where you're sprinting back across campus to try and get back into your company spaces on time to sign taps. I. I just remember that that walk back at the end of the day or that elevated, that fast walk, the brisk, the brisk pace to get back to company spaces. That's what happens and so so yeah, that's kind of how it rolls.

Speaker 1: 31:36

You know, as we talk about stuff that's different now versus then. There's way more weekday Liberty for upperclassmen shipment. Now you know I plan again, I'm going to again, I'm going to do and I'm going to plan, I have like an episode scheduled on leave versus Liberty and talk about, like, what is the difference between leave and what is the difference between, again, between live, leave and Liberty. What does it mean? What are the differences? Um, there's, there's way more uh Liberty during the week than when I was a midshipman. Um, you know, now, uh, first class midshipman, even during the first semester, um, they get Tuesday and Thursday um Liberty, starting at 3 30 PM, at 1530, they're allowed to leave campus, they're allowed to just go on Liberty.

Speaker 1: 32:18

Um, if they're sat, uh, sat means um. Sat means like they've got good grades, they pass the PRT, like everything is satisfactory, right, like that I mean literally right. Sat is satisfactory in every aspect of being a midshipman. So if you're a SAT midshipman, you can go Tuesday, thursday on Liberty during first semester and then second semester they get Tuesday, wednesday and Thursday Liberty and second class midshipmen get Tuesday and Thursday Liberty. It's a lot of Liberty, like, it's cool, like I'm happy to see it right, like I'm not a disgruntled old guy here, like, but it's just different, right, it's just different than what we were doing and so that was a cool one. Like I'm excited about that to see that midshipmen are getting more Liberty, um, but again, that's also the purpose of taps. Like, since upperclassmen shipment and get a go on Liberty, you have to come back and be back on deck by 11 PM to make sure you're signing your back where you're supposed to be, and so that is the purpose of taps. Wow, wow, how about that? I think that was a good, I think that was a good rundown. I think it was a good rundown on, like kind of the routine stuff that's going on in terms of the battle rhythm of the day.

Speaker 1: 33:33

There are a couple more things that I want to talk about in this episode, as we talk about, like you know, all this different stuff, and the first is the plebe training program, and we're going to do a whole episode on plebe duties. We're going to talk about signature sheets, we're going to talk about boards I was just talking to a family earlier today literally about boards, and so I'm excited to like do a full episode on that and talk a little bit about that. But I want to focus on the plebe training program because you know we talk a lot during plebe summer, like we do all these terms about getting dropped and like all these punishments and remediations and all the crazy stuff and all the funny things that are happening, and when I was in midshipmen, those continued like. Those continued into the like, into the academic year. Like plebe year was just as bad as plebe summer. Like there was, there really was no difference. Um, that has changed again, as we talk a lot about things that are the same, things that are different, things that develop. I'm not here to say whether it's good or bad, I just things are different and so the Plebe training program is slightly adjusted from what it used to be, and so a couple of big call outs, like things that are different, that I want to point out, like, as we're talking about things as parents are trying to understand, like what's going on, there's no more physical punishment allowed during the academic year. Right, and what I mean by that is like there's no getting dropped. And I always thought that was interesting because during the academic year, when I was in midshipmen, again, like if you did something wrong at a child call or you mess something up, right, like you would would get dropped. Like they tell you to. Like hey, like drop and give me 20, right, like drop, like, do push-ups or get in the front-leaning rest or like, do all these things. And that happened a lot, that doesn't happen anymore, like that is only a plebe summer thing, that no longer happens during the academic year. You are not allowed to get dropped, there are no physical punishments during the academic year.

Speaker 1: 35:31

Going back, like we were talking about the Trident period. Why what is the why? What is the articulated why? As to this is happening, there's two factors. One, it's to match the fleet. Right In the Navy, as an officer, you don't get to tell your sailor to drop and do push-ups for you. It's not allowed, you don't do it. And so, again, it's an interesting thing.

Speaker 1: 35:58

Again, the articulation is the upperclassmen shipmen need to learn how to lead without dropping people, without that as a tool in their toolbox, and so that's actually a really interesting one to me. Again, they're trying to match the fleet and in the fleet they're only, like again, only physical punishments, only getting dropped, like at bootcamp, right, and so, again, plebe summer is the Naval Academy version of bootcamp, and so that's what you're experiencing. Like that happens during bootcamp. It's not happening during the academic year, like it wouldn't in the fleet. You have to learn to lead without, like, making people do physical punishments, uh, when they perform, uh, not to the standard that you're expecting, right, and so all that is super interesting.

Speaker 1: 36:37

Um, the second piece that I thought was really interesting and I can get behind it and I agree with this it's to promote recovery, right, and uh, again, when we get away from we talked earlier about this episode of the steel pt program right, instead of just getting beat down during morning workouts like you have a. And again, when we get away from we talked earlier about this episode of the steel PT program right, instead of just getting beat down during morning workouts like you have a structured workout plan. Well, if you have a structured workout plan, you're, when you're not working out, you're supposed to be recovering, like, you're supposed to promote active recovery for, like all the workouts that you're going through, and so this is a great thing Again, when, when plebs are no longer having to do additional push-ups, sit-ups, flutter, kicks and stuff outside of their workout regimen, their bodies are able to recover appropriately and allow, like, the actual steel PT program to have its best effect, right, and so all that's happening. Those are kind of some of the whys behind what's going on and I find it really interesting. I love it Really cool, where the quote-un like beat downs could still happen.

Speaker 1: 37:32

They don't really. You see lots of cool pictures the Naval Academy posts all about it, cause it is like it's the most military thing which I love our Saturday morning trainings. So between 8am and noon on Saturdays the plebs are able to kind of conduct Saturday morning trainings which are usually like again, you see them a lot like in their type threes right, like in the camouflage uniform. Um, they're running, they're doing lunges together, doing pull-ups, carrying logs, going on boat, you know like they're doing like the the cool quote unquote PT stuff. And that usually still happens during Saturday morning trainings. Again, when I was in midshipmen, a lot of times like during the mornings, like normal mornings sometimes they would still make you get into camos and you know do bear crawls and you know army crawls across, like all that stuff's kind of gone. It could still happen during Saturday morning training, but a lot of times again, it's kind of still just like a more active quote unquote, like cooler form of PT, is that Saturday morning training a little bit more like team dynamic et cetera.

Speaker 1: 38:28

One of the big things that was really interesting to me when I was talking to some midshipmen is that punishments we talked about physical punishments but like punishments in general are going away. And this is really interesting to me because you know, my noon meal training experience is really interesting when you would go back on deck and noon meal training is really interesting when you go back on deck and new meal training, like you would be doing rack races. You would be going what my detailers would say, quote unquote, like we're going back to the basics, right, like back to the basics, back to plebe summer. You would do again. You do rack races, you'd be studying again prono instead of reef points, but like you'd be kind of doing like plebe summer esque activities, uh, during during your day, during the academic year, and a lot of that stuff is gone right. So no more rack races during the academic year.

Speaker 1: 39:17

Um, you know, a lot of times, like if plebes are not performing appropriately, or performing appropriately, performing up to standards, whatever you want to call it um, we would have punishments, like a lot of times when our uniforms weren't up to standards, you were failing uniform inspections, your uniform didn't look good, your shoes weren't shined, you had strings on your uniforms, or it wasn't ironed appropriately In order to like remediate that issue. It'd be like, okay, well, if you can't wear your uniform, right, we're just gonna have to have you. We're gonna get you more reps, we're going to get you more practice of wearing your uniform and you would have to do like what we would call 24 hour blues. Like that was something that was a punishment for us, meaning anytime you were out of your room, 24 hours a day, you had to be in your working blue uniform, which means if you woke up to pee in the middle of the night, at 2, 30 AM or 3m, you would have to get into your working blues just to go to the bathroom. Right, like that, was it Like 24-hour working blues? Like anywhere you go, at any time, you had to be in blues In the evening, right, like when you could be in blue and golds going like no, you had to be in working blues. When you woke up in the middle of the night, you had to be in working blues. It was 24-hour blues, it was 24 hour blues, like that was, and it was meant to be a punishment. Right, it was meant to be a punishment.

Speaker 1: 40:33

Another thing, like when plebes if a plebe got caught like not chopping or not walking in the center of the P way or not doing some of these things. A lot of times we would, uh, you know I've heard one term like, call it racetracks. I've heard another term I forget it was like right turns only. Whatever the case is, you could no longer if you move through Bancroft wrong, maybe a punishment or remediation is you could no longer utilize go both ways in Bancroft. Let's say you walked out of your room and the bathroom was to the left but you were only allowed to turn right. Well, guess what? You had to turn right, right and go around the outside of the entire company space until the bathroom ended up back on your right side. Right, like that was, but like that was how it was. Like these were race taxes, like if someone saw you and you turned left, when they know you were only allowed to go right, like you had to stay on the outside of everything. Um, then that became an issue, right, and so all of these things that kind of made my plebe year really iconic.

Speaker 1: 41:32

Right, like again, all the rack races, the 24 hour blues, the racetracks, the again all the punishments for things that were going on. They seem to be going away a little bit right, like those things are not as common in the brigade. If, if you know, I'm off here again, I'm not talking to every single midshipman that's there and every company is different. But if things are different, again I would encourage you know people, just to let me know. Maybe I'm a little bit off again. Things can always vary from company to company, but a lot of those punishments are starting to go away Again no dropping, no physical punishments, no more really rack races during the academic year, no 24-hour blues, no racetracks. Again, the focus is on taking care of the physical mission and taking care of the academic mission, and those are the things that are going on.

Speaker 1: 42:18

Another thing that is really different for me and again I have a lot of different opinions on it I'm not saying it's good or it's bad, I don't know. I literally have mixed opinions. I was talking to my good mentor and friend, john Cordell about this the other day is napping is allowed. Now Napping is allowed for plebs. And again, this one's funny to me because, like you know what I mean, I was like oh, they're allowed to nap openly, blah, blah, blah. Like my whole plebe experience was about hiding places where I could go take a nap. All we wanted to do was take a nap, and plebes took naps all the times, but you were running a risk by napping.

Speaker 1: 42:54

There's a term that you hear at the Naval Academy which I love this term always cracks me up, I still say it to this day which is you rate what you skate. You rate what you skate, and this term rate means what's allowed. What you rate is what you're allowed to do, the privileges that you have, and as a plebe, you don't rate napping. Or again, when I was a midshipman, as a plebe you didn't rate napping. And so if you went to go ahead and like take a nap, again, like you can take a nap, but you rate what you skate, right. And so if you're skating, you like the term skating means doing something you're not supposed to do, right, and so you rate what you skate, and so you could take a nap.

Speaker 1: 43:31

But if you got caught, you got in trouble, right, like this was the classic um, again, an incredible life lesson, which is like uh, there are consequences for your actions. You know you're not allowed to nap, but you're going to nap anyway Cause you're exhausted. You're going to try to find a way to do it. But if you got caught, like that's on you, like that's on you, and now you're in trouble and like you just got to accept the consequences for your actions. And so again that's a big thing for me, cause, like that was a big part of my plebe experience is you would go and you were trying to find places to nap, to hide, to nap, but all that's different now, like you can nap during the day in your rack, you're openly allowed to go back and take a nap in your rack and that's allowed. It's allowed.

Speaker 1: 44:17

I have heard some differing opinion from midshipmen. Maybe some companies allow it more than others, some kind of don't, or put a little bit more restriction on it. So again, the difference may vary based on what's going on, but there are definitely some companies that definitely allow napping. And it's interesting to me because at the same time I'm like good, good, if a plebe has an opportunity to take a nap, dude, and they can get a little bit of rest, like reprieve from their exhaustion, like that's a good thing, right, like it's definitely a good thing. And so like it's funny, because I'm fighting like internally this, like oh well, it's not how it was when I did it. You know what I mean. Like I feel myself becoming that salty old grad, but at the same time I'm like wow, no-transcript for the remaining part of the day. Like that's a good thing. If you nap and then you're prepared to work out a little bit harder or practice better at your sport in the afternoon, then like that's a good thing, right, and so those are the things that are happening. That's what's going on.

Speaker 1: 45:27

This is a rundown of, you know, the academic year. We'll break more of these things down like deep dives again. We're gonna do a Plebe Duties you know episode coming up. We're gonna talk about Lee versus Liberty. We're gonna do an episode on uniforms. Like there's so much good stuff to talk about.

Speaker 1: 45:42

But this was a fun one for me to kind of go back through the shift to the academic year, things that are happening, things that are going on and getting a walkthrough of everything. So if you have any questions, let me know. Otherwise, I hope this was entertaining and informational about, like everything that's going on during the academic year, provide a little bit insider guidance into what's happening at the Naval Academy and, as always, if you have any questions, let me know. Otherwise, I look forward to seeing you on future episodes of the Academy Insider Podcast. Thanks. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Academy Insider Podcast. I really hope you liked it, enjoyed it and learned something during this time. If you did, please feel free to like and subscribe or leave a comment about the episode. We really appreciate to hear your feedback about everything and continue to make Academy Insider an amazing service that guides, serves and supports midshipmen, future midshipmen and their families. Thank you.