One of my favorite quotes about training from an author and law professor, Michael Josephson, “Never stops learning, because life never stops teaching”. Learning through training and schooling is one of the essential ingredients for us Naval Officers on the path toward our career progression. Some may take it for granted and some fail to take it seriously. Others may not see it as a priority and some just take it for compliance. However, in our life as naval officers, we should not be stagnant and contented with our existing awareness and abilities. The nature of our work is embedded with a deep sense of responsibility and bombarded with too much expectation from our subordinates and commanders. Our work is basically stressful, time-demanding, and full of new eventualities. With this, we should be ready and keep ourselves equipped with the proficiency to perform the job, tasks, or any endeavors that will be given to us.
With this foregoing, I believe that this course, the Naval Staff Course (NSC) will teach and mold me to become a more effective and efficient military naval Officer. I have confidence that this course will give me necessary, the basic and broad knowledge and skills to perform the ideal duties and responsibilities expected of a staff officer of any unit of the Philippine Navy. Although prior to entering this schooling, I’m quite hesitant to join the class because I’m just a newly reported officer to my new unit. However, with the advice of my classmate, I realized that this schooling will help me to become a more reliable asset to my unit in a way that I can contribute more with new learnings that I can get from the school.
I expect that this course will develop and improve my communication and writing skills. Initially, I know that this course will expose us, students, to various papers works, and turn-ins that would require utmost research and engagements with different sources. I believe that in any training, the only way to inculcate effectively a new set of skills is to let students have actual hands-on training repeatedly until it becomes part of the body system. With this, I expect that my writing ability will improve and that I can be prepared enough to be an officer doing staff papers. Further, I envision myself communicating verbally in a more competent and confident manner. I’m not really a good speaker and speaking in public is one of my weaknesses. I presume that as part of the course, I will learn to develop my conversational skills with small and large audiences with different outlooks on life.
Furthermore, it is mentioned in the orientation that we will be working as a group on some of the taskings and assigned turn-ins in this schooling. As a junior officer, I’m expecting that I will be doing student works with senior classmates and most of them are unfamiliar since we came from different units. In the end, I hope that this setup will help me gain more wisdom from my classmate’s experiences that I can use in my future undertakings as a naval officer. I think that such an initiative of the school will also teach me how to properly deal with and have harmonious relationships with senior officers in order to have better outputs. This is critical since as a staff officer, most of the people that we are going to work with are senior officers like unit Commanders and fellow staff officers. Each of them has their own views and perspectives which must be weighed and balanced for the sake of the unit. I expect that this schooling will be the best platform to practice working with known or unknown senior officers for us to adapt appropriately as needed. Moreover, I also expect to widen my networks in the Navy through immersions with my classmates and instructors as well as the whole training staff of the school and other PN units.
Likewise, as one of the critical abilities of a naval officer, decision-making skills must be strengthened. Knowing this, I expect that as part of the curriculum, the course will enhance my leadership style and shall advance my capability to make important decisions that are vital to the unit’s accomplishment of its mission. In the military, the decisions of leaders are critical because they can make or break the unit or worst can take the lives of the subordinate and the people. With this schooling, I expect that the course will impart some tools, means, or ways in order to come up with the best decisions for every state and condition affecting the PN unit or AFP as a whole.
After this course and if fortunately finished the entire training, I envisioned myself to be a better version and a more well-equipped Naval Officer of the Philippine Navy. As expected, this NSC schooling will be my ticket to the next career course which is the Naval Command Course (NCC). It is then a requirement for promotion in the future. However, aside from this fact, it is imperative to acquire all the learnings from the training and absorb them by heart and mind. The life of an officer aboard a naval vessel performing sea duty is satisfying. Nonetheless, performing ashore duties such as being a staff officer or assistant in offices of different units is entirely different. Staff advice and inputs are vital to all Commander’s directions and decisions in alignment with the thrust of the PN and AFP as a whole. And with this schooling, I expect that we will be ready enough to provide quality staff inputs and outputs for our respective unit’s missions and visions accomplishment. Still, my learning will not stop in this schooling because life as an officer of the Navy is a continuous teaching process. It must continue as I sail towards my journey in the Navy.