Monday Morning

[Fire1]

For everyone doing their last minute packing, fretting, and pacing around their house, reporting is T-minus 24 hours. For most of us this has been a long and varied road to get here. Just remember why you signed up to do this job. It was not to go to academy. It was to do the real job that we all admire. When things get rough like we all know they will, just remember that it is just one more week... one more week... I know that my motto when I get up in the morning will be "Today is not the day that I quit".

Best of luck to you all. Drive safe today and get some good rest tonight (yea right). See you tomarrow morning at Starbucks as we wait to begin the first day of the rest of our lives in the CHP.

[Sheriff]

Congratulations and good luck to all of you starting the 6-month long journey! :biggrin:

[Nellie]

No matter how tough it may seem, don't give up. Good luck and be safe.

[Wood19]

Will see you at starbucks, i will be the one with the short hair! haha see you tomorrow!

[Mac]

Congrats and good luck to all of you. You've got probably the toughest 26 weeks of your life ahead of you, but the end result is worth it. Cowboy up!

[G-Man]

good luck, it will be hard. it is supposed to be. the academy is harder now than it has ever been, and it is only getting tougher.

[x MAIT]

Unless PT is mandatory every morning Monday through Friday, there is no way it could be harder now than it ever was. By the time I got to breakfast each day, I knew that the hard part was over. Just my humble opinion. CTC II - 77.

[Bosco]

Unless PT is mandatory every morning Monday through Friday, there is no way it could be harder now than it ever was. By the time I got to breakfast each day, I knew that the hard part was over. Just my humble opinion. CTC II - 77.



Affirmative...if I had time to eat breakfast.

[DESERT RAT]

One thing I have learned in my short career with the CHP is: PT/academy training from yesteryear is like the Big Fish that got away, each year it gets bigger and harder. Whats also amazing is each year the cadets get worse, the staff office is more lax, and the dept has dropped it standards compared to yesteryear! Actually I think the problem is that of Perception, most of us are egotistical SOB's who think we are the best at what we do! We also think that what we experienced at the academy was the hardest, therefore boosting our ego's because we made it. I guarantee that PT for our #1 Marshmellow was harder(In his mind) than any academys PT, past,present,future, due to the fact that he was out of shape. I have friends who graduated from the academy in 66 and a partner who graduated in 81 and they both say PT was easy, but they were both in shape. Its all about perception.

[retchp]

I agree with Rat. I went through in 1974. the Academy was a walk in the park for me. For some of my classmates it was pure hell. I had worked as a lumberjack and had gone through Army Boot Camp before going there and also had a great education. Back in 1964, when I graduated from High School, a high school education was equal to a JC AA today.
It really is all about perspective.

[WinnieI05]

I was in the academy w/ rat and agree with what he's saying. It really is mind over matter, at least it was for me. If I made it to the 8:00am class, I was victorious. My personal goal was to make it through PT everyday. In a sick kind of way, I enjoyed it.

Good luck to the new class!

WinnieI05

[G-Man]

i am just repeating what the staff office was telling us. not trying to build up the fish that got away because i too agree everybody thinks that when they went through it was the hardest academy ever.

[retchp]

I want to add to my posting a couple above this:
I sometimes forget that these posts are read by a lot of people who are very worried about getting into CHP and/or through the Academy and probation. In rereading my post I come off a little flippant.
What I was trying to get across is that some folks have a harder time than others do. But anyone who reports in reasonable shape and is reasonably intelligent and really wants to get through will do so. It is the job of the Academy Staff to create rookie CHP officers out of civilians. They are very good at doing that.
Also, some people have it built up in their minds so huge that they over stress about it. EVERYONE ELSE is stressing too. Some will be good at academics, some at PT, some at drivig, some at drill and ceremony etc. The key is to just know you are all in it together, band as a group and help one another.
One other thing, my academy was only 16 weeks long. By the end we were all pretty sick of the place and of each other too, even though we had become a family by then. I am sure that it now being around six months really adds a significant amount to the stress level. But again, help each other along and you will be fine.
Some people, (myself included) do better in a structured environment than others do. If you are good at living a structured life...knowing when you will eat, exercise, be in class, what comes next etc. it will be easier to deal with than someone who just likes to take life as it comes.
As has been said elswhere on the Forum, over 18000 have now successfully gone through the place in all of it's permutations. YOU CAN TOO!

[pupdog]

Something I find a little wierd around here is the emphasis on academy compared to emphasis on the job. In the end, isn't it about the job? I'm sure a lot of you are gonna start pulling my tail for saying that, but I'm searching for the correct words here.

The monday morning I'm curious about is that of Nellie, Res-Q, and the rest of the recent grads!

[Nellie]

Let's just say...I ended up in the hospital that monday (at the academy) night. Be afraid...be very afraid. ;)

[Mac]

Something I find a little wierd around here is the emphasis on academy compared to emphasis on the job. In the end, isn't it about the job?
The emphasis is there only because this particular forum is mainly about the hiring process - i.e. making it to the Academy. Break-in is another matter entirely.....shorter than the Academy, but the stress level is probably an order of magnitude higher. You're not in a controlled environment anymore - this is the real thing, where you can be seriously injured or killed without so much as a moments' notice. You'll be expected to multi-task like you've never experienced before, and you'll take lots and lots and lots of paper. Now you have to drive, know where you are at all times (often in an unfamiliar environment), listen and talk on the radio, handle calls, secure scenes while dodging traffic and making sure you don't get yourself or anybody else killed, investigate and document with a lot of things going on around you, and then write the reports.....all this at once, not in an isolated LD-by-LD manner like it was at the Academy.

...but once again - many people have done it before you, and many will do it after you. It's not un-doable, but it ain't easy by any stretch of the imagination either.

[Triad]

Let's just say...I ended up in the hospital that monday (at the academy) night. Be afraid...be very afraid. ;)

Were you ok? You didnt hurt yourself did you?

[ResQ]

RETCHP...you are so SO right...they are great at making rookies...BUT, those that go have to be willing to submit to that. If they resist the correction and the discipline...they are gone. IF you are going soon, or are there now...work as hard as you ever have in your life...allow them to mold you...listen to corrections...accept that you may think differently based on your past and accept that you may be WRONG with regards to the way the CHP wants you to think and act...and then once all that is in line...have fun. Great people in my class...anyone else have lifelong friends from that experience? ;)

[Nellie]

Let's just say...I ended up in the hospital that monday (at the academy) night. Be afraid...be very afraid. ;)

Were you ok? You didnt hurt yourself did you?

A week before the academy I had a CT scan and a spinal tap done to see if I had an aneurysm. I was getting headaches every day for three weeks before the academy following a day of lifting...got an immediate headache duing bench press. I was told I did not have an aneurysm, but to go to the hospital immediately if it got worse. Well, the evening of pickup day, I was laying in bed in excrutiating pain. My head felt like it was about to pop. I was dizzy and nauseous. I reported to the staff office all disheveled and provided my medical directions. I was kind of scared, not because of the staff but because of the headache. My roommate (who graduated) had to take me to the ER at UC Davis Med Center. We got back about 4AM. I felt better after that, but still got slight headaches for another week. The prognosis was "cluster headaches". I haven't had any problems since then.

[Mac]

Great people in my class...anyone else have lifelong friends from that experience? ;)
Yup - I still work with a couple of my classmates, and routinely keep in touch with several others.

[retchp]

If you work at it by being a friend and staying in touch, in a few years you will be able to drive from one end of the state to the other and probably have a friend to meet for coffee or a place to stop and visit within 25 miles or so of your location no matter where you are. This just happens as folks begin to get seniority and transfer around the state.
It is a unique job in that respect. Also, you will run into folks you went through with or worked with in one area or another from time to time over the years and it is just like old home week. Like you never even have been apart. That is really one of the coolest aspects of the job. It is especially fun to see an old classmate along the highway on a stop or checking traffic and just pull in and BS for awhile. Maybe hundreds of miles and years apart, but instantly rekindled friendship.
I live within 30 minutes of three or four people I met in my first deployment over 600 miles from here and over thirty years ago.
We are a little old and fat now, but forever young and strong in our minds. Like the book and movie says, 'We were Soldiers once...and young'

[brewdog21]

Just be very aware like I have posted on here before. The entire Staff Office at the academy reads this stuff. When I wnet through a couple years ago, we paid dearly for the stuff future and current Cades an/or spouses put on here Just be careful. My suggestion, Stay off here until you are an Officer. I can promise you that it will come up Monday morning and it won't be fun.

[Mac]

Just be very aware like I have posted on here before. The entire Staff Office at the academy reads this stuff. When I wnet through a couple years ago, we paid dearly for the stuff future and current Cades an/or spouses put on here Just be careful. My suggestion, Stay off here until you are an Officer. I can promise you that it will come up Monday morning and it won't be fun.
Well, in that case....

I'm in the class that just started. The PT is easy, the staff are a bunch of sissies, I can do more push-ups than all the PT instructors put together, and the food is terrible! Oh, and the runs aren't long enough, they don't hold enough room and uniform inspections, and we don't write enough memos!!!

:badgrin: :badgrin: :badgrin:

[Sheriff]

Just be very aware like I have posted on here before. The entire Staff Office at the academy reads this stuff. When I wnet through a couple years ago, we paid dearly for the stuff future and current Cades an/or spouses put on here Just be careful. My suggestion, Stay off here until you are an Officer. I can promise you that it will come up Monday morning and it won't be fun.
Well, in that case....

I'm in the class that just started. The PT is easy, the staff are a bunch of sissies, I can do more push-ups than all the PT instructors put together, and the food is terrible! Oh, and the runs aren't long enough, they don't hold enough room and uniform inspections, and we don't write enough memos!!!

:badgrin: :badgrin: :badgrin:

ROFLMBO!!

[dw]

Something I find a little wierd around here is the emphasis on academy compared to emphasis on the job. In the end, isn't it about the job?

100% corrrect, pupdog, and many applicants lose sight of that.