Can you study for your OOW Unlimited & OOW 3000gt Yacht while working?

You find yourself between a rock and a hard place. You need money and experience, so you work. Yet, in order to advance your seafaring career, you need to sit the Officer of the Watch (OOW) Unlimited or OOW 3000gt Yacht MCA oral exam, which requires you to take time to properly prepare.

Juggling the demands of work and studying requires excellent time management skills and a lot of dedication. On top of that, it can be difficult to find the time and energy to study after a long day at work, and it may be necessary to sacrifice social activities or leisure time to make progress. Working long hours or having an unpredictable work schedule, both of which are a pretty good description of life onboard, can make it challenging to maintain a consistent study routine.

So, is it possible to study for your OOW MCA oral exam while also having a job? It is… but it’s definitely more difficult and not ideal.

Same, same but different

Candidates for both the OOW Unlimited and the OOW 3000gt Yacht ticket are normally tackling their first MCA oral exam. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for us to see candidates for both tickets that simply underestimate the amount of focused study that is required to be confident of a pass.

This is especially prevalent amongst OOW 3000gt Yacht candidates, probably because they have often done RYA exams prior to embarking on the MCA route and mistakenly believe that the systems are at a similar level. Cadets, and those on the OOW Unlimited Experienced Seafarer route, often have a better grasp of the level required from their time studying the academic elements at college.

In terms of the availability of time to study, yacht candidates are likely to be working full time and will often need to make a fairly stark choice between quitting to focus on their oral prep or trying to fit it around working. OOW Unlimited candidates tend to have oral prep time allocated as part of their time at college but the system can let them down, especially for Cadets.

COVID-related disruption, exam (un)availability and the need to go back to sea to finish the sea time, combined with some companies ceasing payments despite these delays, have meant that more and more Cadets are being pushed into a difficult financial position before they sit their orals. This often means that they have had to find a job to support themselves financially.

To work or not to work

Studying for the MCA oral exam is a full time job. Working full time and trying to fit in a few hours of study early in the morning, late in the evening or on weekends is very rarely enough and is likely to lead to burn out.

So, what to do? Most candidates will be studying full time for about a month before their orals and should be following a carefully structured plan to make sure that they are covering all of the syllabus and giving themselves adequate time to practice speaking out loud in tutorial sessions and mock exams. If it’s absolutely necessary to work while studying, then we recommend doubling the amount of time that you are studying for but it’s still really important to try to take leave for at least a week or two before the exam.

While working, it’s important to start revising slowly, as early as you reasonably can do. Most of our candidates make use of our eLearning resources which are designed to enable you to dip in and out whenever you have a free moment, rather than others which are composed of really long videos. Every extra lesson you read during your coffee break or quiz you do before going to bed will help.

It’s also even more important than normal to have a structured revision plan and carefully work through it section by section to ensure that you remain on track. Building in time throughout this period to regularly attend our small-group clinics or private sessions after work or on the weekend is also vital because they will help you to gain confidence speaking out loud and to identify your weak areas before facing the real exam.

We’re here to help. Really.

Finally, we understand that taking time off to revise can be financially difficult and that relying on private sources of exam preparation can get expensive. That’s why we keep our prices affordable and give Cadets significant discounts. Even so, it’s important to set aside enough of a budget to give yourself a proper shot at passing.

Sadly, we sometimes see candidates that keep failing because they don’t give themselves the time or the money to prep properly the first time and then rush to resit, making the same mistake again. It’s smarter (and likely cheaper overall) to take a bit more time to work, build up some savings and give yourself the best chance to pass the first time around.

Make no mistake, working while studying for your OOW Unlimited or OOW 3000gt Yacht MCA oral exam is difficult. Yet, if you spread the revision effort out over a longer period, are diligent about your study plan, give yourself a period for more intensive study right before the exam and take advantage of the support that’s on offer, it’s achievable.

If you do it right, you will only need to prepare for this test once. Let us help you with that; please do reach out and work with us to design a study plan that fits your work schedule and gets you through the MCA oral exam first time!