What was the academy like for you?

**trekgirl** · 09-02-07, 10:05 PM

I'm curious about what the academy was like for you guys and gals. Especially city cops as this is where I heading, although I'd love to hear from county and state as well.
One question for the city cops specifically...how long was the academy and were you required to live there or did you commute each day?

**jcsdscott** · 09-02-07, 10:23 PM

Boring at times but fun; lived in a hotel for twelve weeks about 100 miles away from home. A good bonding experience but the most important stuff I learned when I got back to the county.

**lewisipso** · 09-02-07, 10:34 PM

My academy was incredible. I loved it. I was elected and able to serve as class president and we had a lot of excellent officers. We lost no one and the academy head instructor had a great balance of fairness and firmness. I hope I am half as good as a supervisor as he was.
The only complaint I would have is it was not long enough to dwell on subjects. 12 weeks.

**cashton** · 09-02-07, 10:45 PM

Alot depends on where you are taking the academy too. I had to go for 16 weeks and live at the academy during the week and go home on weekends. It was extremely hard and they were on our ass every hour of everyday when we were there. We even had home work to do over the weekend so we never truly got away from the academy until the day after graduation. It was a great experience looking back but I would never in a million years go back.

**2525** · 09-02-07, 10:50 PM

Training program here lasts 9 months. Tiring as hell, but was fun because I had a great class. We really bonded and did just about everything together.

We did not live on-campus.

**TXCharlie** · 09-02-07, 10:54 PM

My academy is the same one that the DPD Reserves use, at our community college 8 months every weeknight from 6pm-10pm, plus a couple of weekends. It's been great, I might even say a peice of cake. Mostly classroom w/some minimal range & drive time (if you want to learn shooting, tactics, and persuit driving, you'll have to take additional classes).

It's non-paramilitary/non-PT, geared specifically to meet the TCLEOSE requirements so we can get our foot in the door.

**Bob Loblaw** · 09-02-07, 11:33 PM

Mine was the most boring, uninspired 2 months in which I learned next to nothing. No PT, no yelling and screaming...just a lot of classroom work that did not teach me anything whatsoever about being a cop.

**Jks9199** · 09-03-07, 12:04 AM

I attended a 6-month (approx) non-residential academy run by the county and towns. Discipline was strict, and we did do some of the boot camp games, but the basic atmosphere was "you're in training to be professional LEOs, and you're going to be treated as professionals." Not surprisingly, there was also a heavy emphasis on integrity, and recruits were dismissed for attitude, as well. There were two main portions; "Breakout" when the class was broken into groups and sent in rotation through driver training, the range, and some other things, and the rest of it. The balance for the bulk of the academy was about 2 hours of practical DT or PT, but that's not a firm line. (Basically, most afternoons outside of Breakout were alternated between PT or DT by platoons.) Testing consisted of written tests, a small handful of oral exams, and practical tests where we demonstrated lessons learned.

However, as Bob Loblaw intimated... the academy is only the start of your training! Field training is at least as important; that's when you learn how to use the tools you were given in the academy. And then you should go on learning throughout your career!

**trekgirl** · 09-03-07, 01:59 AM

Thanks for all your responses guys, keep 'em coming!!!

**TXCharlie** · 09-03-07, 02:49 AM

You shoud also read this thread, for the debate over the different styles of academies you'll find as you shop around:
http://www.lawenforcementforums.com/...t=paramilitary

**Coloradocop** · 09-03-07, 03:38 AM

I'm in a big city department, and my academy was run by our city itself. When you enter the academy you are a city employee, and you get paid around $40,000/yr here during your academy stay.

"Fun" isn't a word that I would use to describe my academy.

It was a long 6 months... Non-residential, a lot of work, and a lot of BS mind games... They ran it as a quasi-para-military type of experience, with a lot of structure, yelling, and mind games. I think it pales in comparison to the real military, but you quickly tire of some of the BS that they throw at you (ie: constant "yes sir, no sir" stuff, drilling, daily uniform inspections, standing at attention with your back to the wall when a senior officer -- or even the janitor -- passes you in the hall, having your lunch break interupted for PT and pushups, having to memorize "important" things like the serial number on your handcuffs, etc).

There was also a lot of homework, and it wasn't usually stuff that you could work quickly through simply by having a knowledge of state statutes and the like -- a lot of this work involved things such as: Memorizing every street (and it's associated block number) for the entire city, in order. Or, memorizing significant parts of our department's Operations Manual. Essentially, a lot of so-called "busy work"... memorization tasks that just took a lot of time to complete! Plus, the nightly ritual of spit-shining my boots at home for the following morning's inspection

how fun

On the positive side, it was paid training for 6 months at a liveable wage, and I got my POST certification for free! Plus, I could always rationalize the experience by remembering that I was getting paid to exercise, drive fast, shoot guns, and sit in a classroom!

**cashton** · 09-03-07, 10:38 AM

Yeah, mine was very military in the way it was ran. I was in the Navy and I can tell you, Navy boot camp was a walk in the park compared to the WVSPOL academy. We even had an ex-Marine that quit the first week. It was pretty rotten but the worst part was the drive to and from....I lived about 360 miles away so it had a long trip every Friday (home) and Sunday (back to acad.).

**Beans** · 09-03-07, 11:10 AM

Mine was 6 months and I had to commute there each day. It was tough and I had just got out of the Army. They crammed like 1 year worth of college level material into that 6 month period. It was overwhelming at times.
I just had to buckle down and I graduated 4th out of 32. I am no brain so for me that was a big accomplishment.

**Hannah87** · 09-03-07, 11:14 AM

My academy was through the school, every friday. It was fairly easy. The only thing I really struggled with was the scenario's at the end but I just had a lot on my plate at that time. Wasn't military style at all. We did DAAT, firearms first semester and Vehicle Contacts and EVOC the next semester and then we did CPR certification and Field Sobriety training as well in between all that. All of it was a lot of fun though.

**Jks9199** · 09-03-07, 12:43 PM

Originally Posted by Beans

Mine was 6 months and I had to commute there each day. It was tough and I had just got out of the Army. They crammed like 1 year worth of college level material into that 6 month period. It was overwhelming at times.
I just had to buckle down and I graduated 4th out of 32. I am no brain so for me that was a big accomplishment.

That's one problem I'm seeing with many academies today... Between the stuff you need to know, the stuff that's helpful to know, and the crap that some treehugger decided you should know, there's just too damn much material. And they omit stuff that probably should be there... I'm finding some rookies don't remember some of the stuff that they need to know unless it happened to come up during FTO.

**wanna_b_trooper** · 09-03-07, 01:27 PM

Im hoping to hear from anyone that has gone thru the LSP academy. Its 20 weeks long from what I have learned and most definitely para-military, which I think is great.

**Kpdpipes** · 09-03-07, 04:11 PM

Originally Posted by wanna_b_trooper

Im hoping to hear from anyone that has gone thru the LSP academy. Its 20 weeks long from what I have learned and most definitely para-military, which I think is great.

Paramiliraty is necessary to a point, but IMO some of the academies go WAY overboard with the boot-camp games. We've had a few classes whre it took8 out of the 12 weeks of FTO to deprogram some of these kids that not Everyone is a shithead, and you have to tone down the robocop act. The fact that these kids can run a marathon, and do pushups until I get tired is great..but if they can't deal with paople, or write a cogent, coherent report they're useless.

**ManImBored** · 09-03-07, 05:19 PM

Mine was pretty easy. I went through it at a community college. It was 16 weeks M-F 7:30 - 5:30. We did 1 hour of PT 3 days a week, most weeks. The best part was they used alot of different instructors so it didnt get boring. There was something like 37 sections and we had like 34 different teachers. We actually had fun.

**Whitepaw** · 09-03-07, 06:32 PM

Academy was a piece of cake. Well, we qualified with sling shots. That was back in the day. Upon graduation, they handed you a "slap jack" or a "lead billy".

Okay, for real, the Academy was okay, nothing out of the ordinary. Do PT, Firearms traing, Local and Federal Laws. Investigations, driving techniques. Easy 6 weeks.

After graduation, you expected to attend follow up courses.

Off topic, any one here "Untouchables".

**Coloradocop** · 09-04-07, 03:33 AM

Originally Posted by Whitepaw

Academy was a piece of cake. Well, we qualified with sling shots. That was back in the day. Upon graduation, they handed you a "slap jack" or a "lead billy".

Not to drag this off topic here, but we are one of the few remaining departments (maybe the only large one?) where we are still authorized to carry SAPs ("slapjacks")!!!

Far and away my favorite tool in a fight!