The marine engineering experience at the Canadian Coast Guard College

René Hachey: My name is Rene Hachey. I'm a fourth year officer cadet here in the engineering program.

So I came in here kind of not even knowing what I was getting myself into. I walked in, you know, first day, we don't even really know what marine engineering is. Like I'd heard of engineering before, but I've never really heard of marine engineering before.

I got here, started learning, you know. Basically your first years is mostly theoretical, especially the first semester, and then once you get into the shop and you kind of start getting your hands dirty and working into the machining and the welding. And you know, it's like oh cool, it's kind of like a jack-of-all-trades engineering. You kind of learn a little bit of this, a little bit of that. And it was a really, really good experience.

Once, after your first year is done, you're getting put up right on the ship. My first sea phase was amazing. I got to go up north. I joined early in August. Got to go up to the North Pole. I came back down through the Canadian Arctic. Got to see, you know, parts of the country that not a normal person gets to see, so it was great. It was an awesome experience.

Then I came back here for the long 16-months stretch, but it was still awesome because I came back to people who had made now my family. Once you spend 40 hours a week with people for so long, you get to miss these people after you haven't seen him for 4 months. So you come back and make the best out of it. And it was really cool to reunite and reconnect with all the people, and hear about all their experiences and share that, share that with these individuals.

So I did a university before for this. I want to say that in effect I did a Bachelor of Science, the advanced major in biology. And then I came here, after I was out in the field working for three years. It just wasn't the job for me. I knew that, like I just, I knew sitting behind a desk for 40 hours wasn't my cup of tea. So I needed a change and I actually googled, I think, cool college programs and this happened to come up, and I kind of applied on a whim and it was probably the best whim decision I ever made.

There's not gonna be a spot that gives you as much as the Coast Guard College gives you. You're getting, you know, a free education. You're getting a guaranteed job when you're out of here and everything's paid for while you're here. It's realistically such a good option, and I wish I would have known about it sooner. Not that I didn't enjoy my university experience, I did, but this was a program that sets you up from the beginning.

Now, here I am, you know, four years later in this program. Just want to finish this program and enjoying every minute of it, so I can actually say I enjoy my job now which is awesome.