Starfleet Academy

Starfleet Academy is Starfleet’s in-house university, intended to train officers to join Starfleet. A part of Starfleet Training Command, this institution spans multiple campuses across Federation space, educating tens of thousands of cadets each year. The original flagship campus is located on Earth in San Francisco, within walking distance of Starfleet Command.

Academic Program Overview

The time it takes to complete a particular program at Starfleet Academy depends on several factors, ranging from the individual’s age and prior experience to which campus it’s being taken on to the program itself. Generally, it takes four years to graduate from most programs as an Ensign with a bachelor’s degree. Specialized programs such as medicine and counseling take an additional two or four years. In addition, individuals may opt to spend longer at the academy to pursue a master’s or doctoral degree, especially in the sciences.

While cadets wear the branch color of either Command, Engineering, or Sciences during their time at the academy based on their intended career path, they receive degrees in an academic area during their time there. All cadets receive training in starship operations and self-defense, alongside a rigorous core curriculum of science, history, mathematics, and the arts, to become well-rounded critical thinkers.

Cadets in a traditional four-year program will spend most of their first two years going through the core curriculum, with their second two years spent specializing. Interspersed throughout classroom studies are practical excursions, such as survival training, zero-gee training, and the all-important cadet cruises performed on actual starships. Ensigns who graduate in this manner are qualified to serve as bridge officers immediately upon their commissioning without taking the Bridge Officer’s Exam, as this is built into the program.

Some programs, including nursing, counseling, medicine, the law, and diplomacy, are structured with just the first year focused on general studies, with the remaining three years focused on the content of their degree, with counseling, medicine, and the law all requiring an additional two or four years spent at one of the specialist academies. This is also an option for cadets in other areas such as the sciences or engineering who do not wish to immediately be considered on the bridge officer track and/or who wish to directly enter graduate school rather than active duty service. Cadets who take this path must take the Bridge Officer’s Exam later in their career to qualify for bridge duty and be eligible for promotion beyond the rank of lieutenant commander.

In-Play

• Generally, if your character wants to become a bridge officer, they’ll spend four years at Starfleet Academy, earning a content degree (astrophysics, interstellar relations, engineering, etc.) and robust training in starship operations, resulting in a commission as an ensign.
• If your character wants to become a nurse or enter a field like diplomacy that wouldn’t need as much training in starship operations, they would earn a four-year degree and a commission as an ensign, but would then need to complete the bridge officer’s examination to become qualified to serve on the bridge or move past lieutenant commander.
• Scientists and engineers also have the option of an abbreviated general studies program, with three years in the specialized study of their content area. This is the track that researchers who don’t intend on becoming bridge officers initially might take. They would also graduate as ensigns and then need to eventually take the bridge officer’s exam if they wanted to progress past lieutenant commander.
• If your character wants to become a doctor, counselor, or lawyer, they would have two options:
  • A character wanting to both be bridge qualified and enter a field like this requiring an advanced degree would take a four-year program in a content area (like xenobiology, psychology, or interstellar relations), graduating as a bridge-qualified ensign and then either two or four more years at one of the specialist academies, graduating with an advanced degree and being promoted to lieutenant junior grade. This track would be eight years total.
  • A character not interested in becoming bridge qualified initially would enter the intended program (medicine, counseling, the law) directly, with three years spent at Starfleet Academy and three years spent at the specialist Academy, earning an advanced degree and a direct commission as a lieutenant junior grade. This track would be six years total.
• There are lots of exceptions and different permutations to these tracks. Many things are possible.
  • Someone with service experience in a member world’s exploratory or defensive service (like the Andorian Imperial Guard) might only need three years at Starfleet Academy.
  • Someone who wants to be both bridge-qualified and earn a Ph.D. might spend eight or ten years between Starfleet Academy and their graduate program, possibly even earning a commission as a full lieutenant in the process.
  • Someone who goes to another university for their bachelor’s degree might be able to enter Starfleet Medical Academy with a year spent first at Starfleet Academy learning the basics of Starfleet, before completing four years at SMA.
• The purpose of this section isn’t to get too far down into the weeds, so just keep it realistic: your character’s not graduating in three years total as a doctor, with no other academic qualifications, but it also doesn’t take ten years to become a flight control officer.

Campuses

Starfleet Academy’s main campus is located in San Francisco, California on Earth. This is considered the most desirable campus to earn one’s commission from, and it is the largest campus (by enrollment) of the system. Subsidiary campuses are located on most member worlds and some colony worlds. These subsidiary campuses are smaller. Some have limited program offerings, and/or specialize in a particular area: for example, the Mellstoxx III campus (aka the Fourth Fleet Academy) specializes in counseling, as it is in a Betazoid colony with a strong tradition of training mental healthcare professionals.

While all Starfleet Academy campuses follow a single, unified curriculum, they can differ in terms of how long it takes to complete a program based on the cultural traditions concerning academics of their host planet: for example, ‘summer breaks’ are a North American tradition in higher education, so some planets do not have them. Others break the academic year into three or four parts, rather than into two parts. This variation is considered desirable, both to offer different schedules for individuals’ preferences, but also because it results in new officers being commissioned at many different dates throughout the year, keeping a constant stream of new officers flowing into the fleet.

In-Play

• Everyone wants to go to Starfleet Academy’s main campus. It’s the most elite, selective institution in the Federation. That doesn’t mean that admissions standards at the other campuses are laxer, but just in terms of the number of seats available only the best and brightest end up in San Francisco.
• The main campus is very diverse. Satellite campuses might have a majority of people born on that planet or from nearby systems, so they would have a different atmosphere. Thus, people graduating from these other campuses might respond in unique ways when placed on multi-cultural starships.
• Someone born on Earth might want to apply to an academy far from home!
• Someone wanting to specialize in a particular area might be directed towards a particular campus: Mellstoxx III for counseling, Telar Prime for engineering, Vulcan for science, etc.

Degrees and Subject Areas

Everyone graduating through Starfleet Academy’s traditional four-year program earns a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree. These degrees are always in an academic discipline, rather than just in a branch of Starfleet or in a position. Starfleet Academy also offers masters and doctoral programs in all of its academic areas.

Social Sciences	Natural Sciences	Formal Sciences	Applied Sciences	Engineering
Anthropology	Astronautics	Computer Science	Agriculture	Aerospace Engineering
Archaeology	Astronomy	Logic	Architecture	Bio-Electronic Engineering
Art History	Astrophysics	Mathematics	Archival Science	Mechanical Engineering
Criminal Justice	Biology	Statistics	Astronautical Tactics	Quantum Engineering
Cultural Studies	Chemistry	Systems Science	Cybernetics	Structural Engineering
Economics	Cosmology		Education	Warp Systems Engineering
Geography	Geology		Exology
History	Meteorology		Forensics
Linguistics	Minerology		Interstellar Relations
Philosophy	Planetology		Nursing
Political Science	Physics		Public Health
Psychology	Stellar Cartography		Small-Group Tactics
Sociology	Vulcanology
Rhetoric

Starfleet Legal Academy offers the degree of Juris Doctor (JD), which is a four-year program covering interstellar law, Federation law, the Starfleet Uniform Code of Justice, and legal history.

Starfleet Medical Academy offers medical doctorates, research doctorates in medical fields, and advanced degrees in fields like public health and nursing. Many new MDs also complete residencies, which do not earn a further degree but do grant additional qualifications.