25 Feb Veteran Students on Campus
Almost all veteran students are older than most traditional students and reside away from campus. Actually, most of them are married with children and they are paying rent or serving a mortgage loan on a home located a couple of miles away from the learning institution. You may never see veterans in the quads, halls or the different campus-based student centers. You may not also see any veterans during campus activities or events. However, as a former veteran student and qualified graduate who owes his thanks to the Post-9/11 GI Bill, I urge veterans to take part in school events.
During my student years, I tried to reduce the time I spent on campus as much as I could. Just like many other veterans, I also had a night job and I was married. Therefore, my study time, sleep time and family were priceless to me. I failed to attend a single school event throughout the course of semester one and two, but I felt like I missed nothing.
During the third semester, a professor of mine mandated his class to attend a campus-based reading event. The author who was honored as a guest reader was Junot Diaz. If you know his name, you obviously realize why it was a big deal to attend the event. Since it had an impact on my grade, I arranged to attend it. There was also a Q & A meeting two hours prior to that, which I also attended.
Following the late arrival of the plane that Mr. Diaz had boarded, the Q & A was postponed and only ten students could manage to attend. As a writer, being privileged to have such an amount of time with a McArthur Fellow and Pulizer Prize winner is an experience that will be with me for the rest of my life. All in all, it is a shame to think that I would have failed to attend if my professor had not mandated me to.
I began attending more campus events after that night, including more readings and a couple of plays. Eventually, I proceeded to be part of an honor society, and as my stay on campus drew to a close, I managed to host as well as plan a reading of student writers. When I look back, the campus events make up three quarters of my fondest memories of my life as a veteran student.
I would like to urge all veteran students to take part in campus events as much as possible. You can begin with the veteran resource center of your school, but avoid making that your only kind of involvement. Take part in student governance and show younger classmates how it is done. You can either join or launch a student organization. There are certain honor societies and sororities that are beneficial to your health as well as resume and after school applications.
Always keep your head up and eyes wide open, with alert ears while you are on campus. College life is associated with more than just classes and assignments. Take advantage of what your school has to offer.
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