For the first time, Jamaica will have a female marine engineer officer aboard a Carnival Cruise Line vessel.
Seychelle Bailey, a final-year student at the Caribbean Maritime University, will join the engineering crew on the world’s most popular cruise company when they set sail in August.
The Linstead St. Catherine native told us that she sees this as an opportunity of a lifetime and she intends to represent the CMU, and gain additional competence,
“I’ve always wanted to work on-board a passenger vessel, so when I was selected—it was like a dream come through,” she said. “My main goal now is to use what I’ve learned at CMU and gain additional skills that will reduce human error while I am at sea.”
Speaking about her journey at CMU, Seychelle stated that it was always her desire to pursue a ‘non-traditional’ career, which influenced her decision to pursue a career at sea.
“I always wanted to do something different in terms of my career, so it wasn’t a hard choice,” she said. “I remember while at the Queen’s School, I did a career evaluation and discovered that my interests are more aligned with engineering field.”
This discovery led her to do additional research on careers in engineering, where she came across marine engineering—a male dominated field.
“It was while researching engineering degree programmes, I discovered CMU and its marine engineering programme.” She noted that there were some reservations about the career path, due to an article she read online, that described it as a ‘male dominated field’ However, after consulting with her father, and other members of staff at the CMU, she decided to pursue her dream.
“At first, I was a bit hesitant,” she said. “But looking at where I am today, and what I have achieved, I can say I made a good decision.”
Founded in 1972, Carnival, which currently operates 24 cruise ships, is said to be the world’s most popular cruise company, carrying more passengers than any other line.
