TRANSCRIPT: Student Veterans: How To Succeed In College

Speaker: Dr. John Schupp

Student Veterans: How To Succeed In College

Hi and welcome. My name is Dr. John Schupp, and I'm here to help you from that first day on campus to graduation.

Two Important Contacts

Getting started in college is a big step. There are many important decisions to make and many students find themselves overwhelmed by the process. Two of the most important people in your college career are your certifying official and your advisor. When visiting your certifying official, bring your DD214, a copy of your military transcript, and a copy of educational transcript if you have any.

These don’t need to be official transcripts; you will get them sent separately, but bring them with you to show the certifying official what you've done. While your there with the certifying official, ask them if there are any professors that are prior military. It would be tremendous if you could find someone on campus that understands your experiences.

Now, let’s talk about your advisor. Students often find themselves lost in a maze of choices, from deciding on a career, to deciding on a major, to selecting a schedule. Your advisor can help - They are the mission specialist. You should try to tell the advisor what you're looking for and what you want to do. Share with them your experiences in the military, what your job was, they don’t understand the military language so you have to try to talk in civilian terms. You have to have a high level of trust between the advisor and yourself. So make sure that the advisor knows who you are, what classes you want to take, and when you want to take them. Your relationship with your advisor is critical for you, for your success. Now, onto your classes.

Class Selection

There are many issues to be aware of when selecting your courses. You need to think about which days of the week work best with your schedule? Do you work better in the morning, afternoon, or evening? Can you take several classes in a row? How many days a week you want to take classes? I’d suggest discussing these questions in detail with your advisor. My suggestion is to take classes either two days a week, or three days a week. So, Tuesdays and Thursdays or Monday, Wednesday, Fridays. This allows you to schedule your VA appointments so that they fit into your class schedule. Because in case you don't know it yet, its very difficult to change VA appointments once you have created them.

First Day Of Class

Let’s talk about the first day of class. Here’s a possible scenario. You walk into the classroom, it's huge. You may have an auditorium with a hundred students in it, or it could be a smaller classroom. Your anxiety may go up because you haven't checked the classroom for clearance, and you have a lot of people with a lot of backpacks that haven't been looked at and so on. The classroom may only have one exit in many cases. The classroom door usually has a small window on it, so you can't see who's in the hallway, and it’s usually kept closed during the entire class period. You can't get out if you wanted to.  My suggestion is sit by the wall next to the door in the back. You might feel most comfortable there, because you have a better opportunity to assess the situation of any danger. This could be helpful strategy, particularly during the first few weeks of class.

Other Students

Structure and discipline are a part of daily life in the military. Campus life is much less structured, often with an unknown hierarchy. You may not be used to this kind of environment. Students may come in late, they leave early. They talk during the lecture, they text during the lecture, they Facebook during the lecture, and that's so extremely unusual for you. When you're in a briefing that doesn't happen. All of these things could cause you to be frustrated and distracted. They don’t know the discipline you’ve had and the teacher is not the drill sergeant, so they usually don’t stop them from doing it. You may want to sit in front corner of the room nearest to the wall so you can hear the teacher better and allow the distractions to go on behind you.

Introduce Yourself 

What happens the first day of class. Often times, the instructor will do an introduction and hand out the syllabus, which is the semester's mission for you. It will provide an overall structure for the course, due dates, and assignments and test and exam schedules. The instructor may or may not lecture on the first day and sometimes class ends early. If there is time after class, this is a great opportunity to introduce yourself to your instructor. Tell them you're a veteran. Tell them when you came back, how many months it's been since you came back and so on.

Introduce yourself that way, and tell them you may have some VA appointments and so on. It's critical to let the teacher know that you're a veteran.

Changes & Flexibility

During the semester now, the syllabus may change. Try hard not to be upset about that. It's okay. They have to adjust as they go along. I know you're not used to having changes to the syllabus sometimes, but they may happen. The students will continue to talk, text, and Facebook. Try not to be upset about that either. And try not to ask the professor what was important that day. I know that when you have the briefing and people are sitting there listening intently in a brief and you don't have that going on in the classroom you have to ask the teacher, what's important about today's lecture? That may offend the professor. Ask the teacher this.

What points do they want to stress to the students today. Ask them that way, the professor won't get upset.

How To Study

Your first exam, how not to study for it. If you just study your notes, it doesn't work very well. Notes have answers. Exams have questions. You're not used to looking at questions when you're looking at the answers all the time. And when do you stop studying? How do you know you're ready.

This is how you study for your exam. Every chapter has five to seven important topics in each chapter. Find them, then write five important items for any of these topics. Write two questions each relating to those topics. Then rewrite those questions with the answer as the question and the question as the answer. Now you should have two sets of 50 to 70 questions per chapter, written by you, and their answers. This should take about two to three hours.  Three days before the exam, take one of your exams. Two days before the exam, do nothing. One day before the exam, take your second exam that you created. That's how you do it.

Now, why this method works, because you get used to get reading questions not just answers, and you've seen these questions two different ways. The reason why I have the second day in between to not do anything, because that allows you to gain confidence in your long-term and short-term memory. You know when you're done studying, because based upon the scores you've given yourself. So now you're done and prepared for your exam.

Final Exams

Now, the final exams, it's easy. Compile all of your written exams. You've already created two comprehensive final exams throughout the whole year. You've already created them. Three days before your final take one complete set of your exams. Two days before your final do nothing. One day before your final exam take the second set of compiled exams, and take it at the same time of day as your final exam is scheduled. You're recreating the entire final exam experience, so by the time you take your final you've already taken two finals before that one. That's why it works.

Veterans Organizations 

Obtaining a college degree can be challenging. This is particularly true for student veterans who often face many obstacles while returning to civilian life. A lost sense of camaraderie, a lack of understanding by the general public and a struggle to adapt to a "normal" way of life can be daunting as student veterans push to get their degrees. To help support student veterans, many campuses create a Student Veterans Organization. From community service events and campus presentations to social gatherings, you’ll always find a way to stay engaged and make connections.

If your campus does not have a Student Veterans organization you could inquire about creating one. This is a great way to get involved and gain some leadership experience on the campus since you already have it in the military. Talk to your certifying official to see if your campus has one, the’d be the one to know.

Importance Of The G.I. Bill 

There's a reason why your education is important to you. I've done a study on suicide over the past six wars; Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and present day. In this report that I put together, the suicide rate for the present era of veterans is the second highest since World War I. The lowest suicide rate is World War II by a factor of ten lowest. The thing that happened with World War II was the GI bill. They didn't have it for World War I. Education was important for the World War II vets, the transition from their military career into their second career. It's key for you to get your education to help you transition, to help give you some confidence, and to help you get through, on to your next career.

Your Mission

Part of my mission that I've had over the past eight years, and part of what I learned, looking at the trends and historical data of veterans over the past 150 years, is I realized that the United States needs you now more than ever. There are over 2.7 million of you that have been deployed since 9/11. You will graduate without student loan debt, or with minimal student loan debt, which is critical. You will graduate knowing how to lead, and you can be the next great generation this country desperately needs. That's why you have to go to school. That's why you have to graduate.

10 Tips 

On the screen, I've listed several helpful tips, 10 of them to be exact. 

Number one: Reach out to other veterans on your campus to establish a network of people you can rely on.

Number two: College is different than the military. Expect chaos and problems and know that it's okay to make a mistake.

Three: Seek out resources and use them. Please don't let pride stand in the way of asking for help. 

Four: Take advantage of your school's academic tutoring and counseling services. Ask your instructor for those details.

Five: Participate in certain activities to break down barriers and become part of the campus community. 

Six: Recognize that other students may not agree with you or understand your military service. You know how to resolve conflict. You've been taught this by your, your entire military career. Use that to your advantage. 

Seven: Ask your adviser about CLEP exams. These tests provide a way for earning college credits without taking college courses. Some veterans can claim full reimbursement for CLEP exam fees. Take advantage of this. 

Number eight: Get your military resume ready for civilian job search. Visit your school's career center for assistance. If they can't help you, then your County veterans administration official can help. Every County has one for women veterans. 

Number nine: Ask a certifying official or your advisor, if there is a support group of women, veterans. I know, that you may feel you're not, you don't need it and it's good for someone else, but not for you. But I would ask any ways.

And lastly, number 10: Ask faculty and staff members who are veterans to put you in contact with upperclassmen who are also veterans and ask them for guidance.