User blog comment:WarrenWitch/Yang nails it, Pyrrha gets her man, Weiss chooses the lesser of two evils...and Ruby hits a crow/@comment-11942246-20130816050909/@comment-23784953-20130816135241

The argument you both have seems to be both at the ideal and cynical end of the scale.

An agreement is near impossible I guess. I think both of you have valid points.

While Beacon may be a military academy, they would most likely have genuine combat training, which are probably mostly done in the Emerald Forest.

Meanwhile, for simulated training, they have a facility in Beacon to do that.

Becoming a Hunter, while a valid career, is akin to being both a military soldier and a beacon of hope for the upcoming Grim siege that may happen in the far future.

Ozpin must make sure they are properly trained and well-prepared for the unexpected. So my theory is that he clearly didn't say that the Grim themselves are within the Emerald Forest, which is what surprised Weiss, instead of being scared shitless of encountering the Grim for the first time.

That means that Ozpin may have expected some encounters with the Grim, and warned the students about them, though never specified what exactly they are fighting, keeping them at their toes.

Sometimes the best lessons are the ones that are done leaving everything to luck.

Ozpin is sorta following the same principle here. You can't teach them to fight the very enemy of humanity without at least some of them killing some Grim themselves once. Simulated tests can only go so far.

An example would be Alisa Amiella from God Eater. While incredibly skilled in simulated combat, she flipped her shit when faced against the Local Enemy Species(tm), the Aragami, since she never faught them before until you (the player character) teamed up with her. Then you yourself faught with her until she was good enough that she's among the best character by the end of the game.

I'm not even sure how strong this theory holds since it sounds dumb in retrospect.