CT Only: College Education For Imperial Citizens

[Supplement Four]

Speculating about Imperial Higher Education...



What do the rules "say" about an Imperial Citizen getting a college education?

If you go by Book 1, then a lot of people don't get higher education after they are 18 years old.

Since you can have an EDU 12 or less at 18 years old or younger, then maybe lower education (what we call High School and Jr. High School) is much different for most Imperial citizens? Maybe the norm, even at a lower TL, is for a more intense education?

We can assume that education courses can be taken during a career, of course, even if using Basic Chargen. The Doctor career, in Sup 4, gets Medical-1 automatically during his first term. And, that skill could conceivably reach Medical-3 if rolls fall in favor of it. So, term 1 for a Doctor is 4 years of Medical School.

But...what happened to college?

This shows that it is possible for an 18 year old to go straight to medical school without going to college.

Telling us that things, education wise, are different for citizens of the Imperium. We can't base our Traveller paradigm on real world education.

 

[GypsyComet]

This shows that it is possible for an 18 year old to go straight to medical school without going to college.

Telling us that things, education wise, are different for citizens of the Imperium. We can't base our Traveller paradigm on real world education.

To some extent this is true. But then there are the ROTC options in Mercenary and High Guard, and the similar consequences in Scouts (sentenced...I mean promoted to the bureaucracy) which strongly suggest that there are universities that follow the modern Western model of "broadening one's mind while still young".

At the same time, the Doctor and Scientist careers don't need College in front of them, at least not explicitly. It could be argued that College is what you are doing that first, and maybe second, term even if the career doesn't say so.

At a metagame level, the careers are what you are doing and learning, not who you work for. Arguably, "being" a Scientist includes learning to be one. Remember, this is an edition that assumed that everyone is "one career and out into play", unlike some later editions where your lifepath is less implied and spelled out in a little more detail.

But many of the careers don't need an external source of advanced education. For a few it would be silly.

 

[kilemall]

Don't forget the Merchant Academy in LBB7.

Any of those service colleges should suffice as a model for college, just civilian them.

Don't forget the sabbatical, although that could be continuing ed or a technical school too.

Wasn't there a JTAS article on this? Ah there we go, JTAS 22, Imperial Academy of Science and Medicine. About as CT canon as you are likely to get.




Whew just looked it up- it's a snooty organization, only top EDU and SOC levels and some INT DMs and a huge bias to IN transfers. It's clearly the Ivy League of Imperium Science, very demanding. But it does have a wide range of study/skill sets, including engineering and social sciences. Looks to be definitely what you are looking for, probably for the more average college education you ratchet down the skill acquisition and requirements.