I was a Forward Observer in the US Army, and served at Fort Stewart, Georgia, with a deployment to Iraq from January to December 2005.

When I first began classes at NCC, I would hang out in the vet center in the tower building between classes. At first, I sat quietly, by myself, and just used the center to do my homework. But thankfully, the other student veterans there helped me to break out of my shell. After years of isolating myself, my friends in the student veteran community got me to open up and start moving forward. By the end of my first semester I was elected to be the next president of NCC's chapter of Student Veterans of America.

My fondest memory from my time at NCC was when our Student Veterans of America chapter hosted the ribbon cutting ceremony for the opening of the Veterans Resource Facility. As President of the Veterans Club at the school, I had been given the opportunity to get to know the administration and to help them understand how the school could better support its hundreds of student veterans. I applied the same skills that I learned about advocacy from my classes and my mentor Chuck, and used them to lobby the school to establish a permanent, dedicated facility to support NCC's veteran population. 

As someone who didn't think I'd make through my first semester at NCC and then two years later matriculated to one of the world's most competitive schools, I want NCC's current student veterans to know that some of the most important experiences you'll have at the college are outside of the classroom. It was my involvement with the student veterans club that helped me break out of my shell, find my passion, discover Columbia University, and find a mentor who continues to provide me career advice years later. Get involved in clubs, take classes in as broad of a range of subjects as you can, and push yourself out of your comfort zone.

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