Aquarius wrote:correct me if I'm wrong because I have no personal experience with this, but don't our modern-day military academies give you the equivalent of a college education as part of the officers training?
Modern US military forces require their officers to have at least a bachelor's degree or greater depending upon their job (i.e., chief engineer of a nuclear-power ship requires a masters, I think, at the very least.) If he attended "Starfleet Training" as implied, which I think both Hoshi & Reed alluded to lasting three to four years, then that
would be the equivalent of a bachelor's, I'd think. It'd be the equivalent of him attending West Point or Annapolis, but for Starfleet.
I've established in most of my writings that he attended the University of Florida (
Go Gators!) both because I simply like the idea of Trip having gone to the Swamp, and because I recall reading they had one of the better engineering programs in the region (obviously, it's changed a little bit since now, but it's all good, right?) My thinking is that he graduated high school early, likely on an account of having skipped a grade or two (being a genius and all), then effectively joined Starfleet who put him through UF (sort of like a ROTC course), which still tracks with the "joined around 17 or so.