Honestly, maybe slightly justified by the nature of the setting? The number of ships that seem to exist in universe, compared to the number of entire planets full of people to draw crew from, is so low that one must imagine that the entry requirements can be exceptionally high. One could also imagine better technology might imply better education technology as well as more refined techniques for using it.
Young officers also do rotations in each department and find out which one they’re best suited to so it makes sense for each department head to be great at what they do.
Voyager’s command staff also had to merge an undisciplined terrorist crew into a rigid military organization. Pretty sure all the trouble makers in Learning Curve were Maquis.
It is definitely the nature of the setting, especially in the TNG era. They even covered what it would take to get into Starfleet Academy, which would be the equivalent of trying to get into an official US military academy.
There is also an issue with the scale of Starfleet during that time. Starfleet was depicted as far smaller in TNG than expected or with that came out during DS9. Picard also hints that Starfleet is desperate for skilled crew by the time of Picard.
Honestly, maybe slightly justified by the nature of the setting? The number of ships that seem to exist in universe, compared to the number of entire planets full of people to draw crew from, is so low that one must imagine that the entry requirements can be exceptionally high. One could also imagine better technology might imply better education technology as well as more refined techniques for using it.
Young officers also do rotations in each department and find out which one they’re best suited to so it makes sense for each department head to be great at what they do.
Then there’s Barcley.
And I think Voyager had a few junior level crew that were having performance issues.
I mean Reg is the one who found a way to make contact with Voyager, he’s just terribly socially awkward so slotting him in Engineering works out
Early on in TNG he was kind of fucking up at his job though. Later on he became more competent yet still socially awkward.
True, although if we had fully functional holodecks I’d probably end up spending an inordinate amount of time in there too
Voyager’s command staff also had to merge an undisciplined terrorist crew into a rigid military organization. Pretty sure all the trouble makers in Learning Curve were Maquis.
It is definitely the nature of the setting, especially in the TNG era. They even covered what it would take to get into Starfleet Academy, which would be the equivalent of trying to get into an official US military academy.
There is also an issue with the scale of Starfleet during that time. Starfleet was depicted as far smaller in TNG than expected or with that came out during DS9. Picard also hints that Starfleet is desperate for skilled crew by the time of Picard.
Starfleet was pretty much wiped out at Wolf 359, I guess.