Our newest post comes from Jayson Jarrett, an eMMissary who works for the office of Veteran’s Affairs at Ball State. In this piece he reflects on the differences between the typical college student and the Veteran student, as well as parsing out how he adapts his role to fit their unique needs as a mentor.
If you were to ask most Americans to describe a “typical” college student, what kind of answers do you think you would get? Middle-class 18-year old, living off of Ramen noodles and partying all weekend? Young adults making their first foray into the “real world”? Despite what our popular culture may tell us, not all college students fit the perception of the fresh-faced 18-year old who just moved to the dorms from Mom and Dad’s house. According to data collected by consulting firm Statsmat for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), only 16% of American college students fit the “traditional” mold of an 18-22 year-old who is financially dependent on their parents, enrolled full-time, and living on campus. In fact, nearly half (47%) of American college students are over 25 (1). About 6% of all American undergraduate college students are Veterans according to the US Department of Education (2).
I work with Ball State’s Veteran students as the head of the University’s Veteran’s Affairs office. While this student population may come to me with more maturity and accumulated life experience than your average traditional college student, many of these students still bring with them the same questions, the same confusion, and the same frustrations that students across all backgrounds bring when they first arrive to campus. These students must also face the added burden of being a “forgotten” population when it comes to the services colleges provide their students. Even if the “typical” college student is no longer “typical”, many college campuses, including my own, still gear programming and services toward what many Americans still perceive as a traditional student population. From University office hours that don’t accommodate students who work during the day to coursework that demands out-of-class time that students with full-time jobs and families may not have to spare, nontraditional Veteran students often start their college careers behind the curve and may struggle to catch up.
That’s where I come in. No, I don’t have any military service in my background, and no, I can’t always relate to the histories that my students bring to me. I am often asked where and when I served and I am always up front with my response that I am a civilian and always have been. I don’t know the military way of life and I don’t always use the correct military jargon. I do, however, have extensive experience as a college student (after all, it did take me six years to finish my bachelor’s degree and three more to finish my master’s) and I have advised, counseled, and mentored thousands of traditional and nontraditional students over my 15+ year career in higher education in a variety of settings from inmates to athletes to business majors. I am an expert in my field and I only ask that each student give me a chance to earn their trust as I help them along their educational journey. In turn, my students have taught me so much about working with this unique population that I feel that I have grown tremendously as a professional and as a person.
What have I learned in my time working with nontraditional students who bring a military background to college? First, I have found that more “traditional” college students will see me as an authority figure whose directions are to be followed. With these students, my role is much more in line with a being a coach and advisor – someone who is in charge of a student’s educational path, someone who holds power over whether a student advances in their degree program or not based on the instructions I give, someone who must set out the plan and make sure it’s being followed. Traditional students ask how. These students will not want to know why they need to do a task or take a certain class; they will want to know how to do it. They don’t want to know why they are asked to do something; after all I wouldn’t ask them to do something that wasn’t important and essential to their educational goals, right? These students often need guidance on how to adjust from high school-level courses (which may be more focused on homework and preparing for standardized exams) to college-level work, (which may be more project-based and graded based on objective exams). These students want to know how to manage their course loads and how to schedule their courses for each term. These students want to know how to grow mentally and intellectually. These students want to know how to get to graduation and to a good career. These students are learning to function in the adult world and it’s more important for me to be a coach to helps create a playbook for these students to follow and an advisor to make sure they are staying on the path.
To Veteran students, on the other hand, my role is much more like that of a counselor and mentor. These students ask why much more than how as they bring more life experience and maturity than most traditional students and are already equipped with the ability to see where they want to go educationally. For these students, I am not as involved in the details of helping them accomplish their day-to-day, term-to-term, and year-to-year tasks as I am with traditional students. For Veteran students, much of my interactions are to discuss how tasks fit into their degree plans and why these tasks are important. For Veteran students, figuring out the how in accomplishing tasks is something that can be done on their own, or with others in the campus community such as peers or professors. My tasks are to be a sounding board for problems that arise, to check in from time to time to make sure everything is going well, and make sure that they understand why what they are currently doing is important in the larger scheme of things.
My relationships with my students in my higher education career is vastly different with my Veteran students than with my more traditional students. With my traditional students, the relationship is much more formal with a focus on coaching and advising as I help them figure out how to “do” college and how to navigate the details their degree programs to completion. With Veteran students, however, my role is more informal with a focus on helping them see the big picture and how the plans they are following fit into the larger scheme of their degrees, their goals, and their lives. With my traditional students, I required regular meetings to check progress, with Veteran students, I simply ask they keep me informed and to come to me as needed. They have already grown up and are fully-fledged adults – they don’t need a babysitter.