I started off here in 2013 as an Engineering major, and about halfway through I switched to the International Studies major because I had more interest in travel and the international community than I did in Engineering. And then, I stayed on to continue in the graduate program because I really enjoyed what I had been learning in my undergrad program, but thought that the graduate program would be an opportunity to kind of continue on and focus a little bit more on a narrower set of topics and maybe perhaps leverage that into some sort of career in international relations.

I was in the Air Force for 23 years, and part of my jobs allowed me to work with the Department of State in various capacities and foreign service, so different embassies and consulates throughout the world. So, I got a taste of what those people do and how important it is for our country to be able to be involved with the international community. So, I’ve had an interest in it and the undergraduate program really helped to whet that appetite for hopefully someday down the road pursuing that as a second career.

You know, there is such a focus on the military, and they make it so easy to transition from the military to being a professional student. And we have an entire office here that helps you make that transition and any questions you have. Because we deal with the GI Bill® and we deal with – especially when you retire coming out of the military there are some growing pains so to being a civilian again. So, that this school really makes it easy, and I’ve come across a lot of colleges and fellow students who really needed some help getting to becoming a student again, so this school is very focused on that which is really a breath of fresh air.

So, what’s really interesting about the grad program here, at least for my grad program which is Political Science, is that we have a small faculty, it’s probably about ten or twelve professors, and you really get to know them on an individual basis and they get to know you on an individual basis. And everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, they’re able to sort of use those to focus your attention… the program towards where you want to go and what your strengths are. I’m a graduate assistant, which means I’m specifically tasked to a professor to help them with their research. And so, you really become, you know, very close with that professor as a grad assistant so that you can really specialize and tailor your education towards something really focused and interesting and that will help you down the road if you decided to pursue a career in that focused area of activity.

The research part of my G.A. job is really interesting. It’s one of the things that really brought me to the program here to study my… to do the master’s program. I’m working in some political party work for the European Union, Germany in particular, so it’s an area that I wasn’t very knowledgeable in before coming to the G.A. But I use the library not just like searching for books on the shelf, but the reference librarians, they really help me look for appropriate scholarship throughout the world related to the topic and that helped me find books and articles and journals that pertain to the topic that I’m studying that I would’ve never known existed. They are experts at that. They find things, and that’s really a huge help to navigating the amount of scholarship out there in any topic, but specifically for my topic. So, I use the library, the reference librarians a great deal.