Many veterans agree the transition from military service to student life is a drastic change, and Eastern Michigan University has programs available to assist student veterans with their unique needs.
EMU senior Chris Parker is an Iraq veteran who served as an infantry Marine from 2005-09. He said the change in lifestyle is extremely apparent when making the transformation from combatant to scholar.
“It’s a totally different setting,” he said. “We go from being completely regulated to totally independent, having to make our own schedules and goals.”
Parker worked in the EMU Veteran Services office, located at 246 McKenny Hall, for more than a year. He said some student veterans might not take advantage of the free services due to having the tendency to deal with problems internally.
“Veterans tend to not ask for help, so they may not be very apt to come in,” he said.
EMU has different programs available with intentions of “helping our student veterans thrive,” the veteran page on EMU’s website said.
The EMU Buddy-to-Buddy service is a confidential outreach program for veterans who need the advice or support of a peer who is also a veteran.
The Peer Advisors for Veteran Education program pairs an incoming student veteran with an older student veteran who has been trained to assist them with the transition to campus life and act as a mentor. Services assisting with filing disability claims, veteran hardship relief funds, pensions from the Department of Veterans Affairs and others are also available.
Ida Mollett is the president of EMU’s Student Veterans Association, and served in the Air Force as a master sergeant.
She said it’s imperative for student veterans to have a plan in place to successfully obtain a degree in the limited timeframe they have to use their GI benefits. Mollett also said there are many good programs available for veterans at EMU, but academic advising is needed to ensure classes aren’t being taken needlessly.
“We could use a good counselor in the office to help veterans with picking their classes,” she said.
“If they’d steer us the right way, there wouldn’t be as many dropping out.”
A Huffington Post article written last year said veterans struggled in college.
“Almost all of them, 88 percent, will drop out by next summer, feeling isolated and frustrated in an alien culture,” the article said. It received criticism from multiple perspectives for not providing accurate information.
Mollett said there are roughly 500 veterans attending classes at EMU who are using school benefits from their military service, and possibly hundreds of other veterans paying for classes out of pocket because they have exhausted their scholarships.
EMU has been recognized by _G.I. Jobs _magazine for being in the top 15 percent of the country’s “military friendly schools” in years past, but was not chosen to be on the 2013 list.
