Tag: Citi Salutes

When the Mission Continues

Posted on by robbie

West Point’s motto, “Duty, Honor, Country,” is perfectly suited to the values of the military, but for graduate John Tien, these three words extend well beyond his 24 years of active duty in the U.S. Army.
“Even when I am not in the military, I am trying to live my life by this motto,” says Tien, Citi’s managing director of retail services and a steering committee member of the Citi Salutes affinity network, Citi’s veterans’ employee-led initiative that serves the veterans community. “I feel like it is my obligation, and my privilege, to continue to serve military families and veterans.”
Tien joined the bank in 2011, right after serving as a senior national security adviser to the White House.
Working with employees across the company, Tien wanted to bring veterans together as a community, and guide them through the challenging transition to civilian life by tapping into the military grit they cultivated during their service.

“Too often the portrait is of the wounded and broken veteran,” says Tien. “Yes, some are wounded and need our help, but the majority of veterans are ready and able to be strategic assets for our community. These are great, young Americans who are given tremendous responsibility to stabilize chaotic situations. They have tremendous amounts of emotional intelligence and critical thinking, making them agile leaders. If we can teach them the concepts of banking as well as operations and technologies, they will be on a path to unlock their highest potential.”
Within a month of working at Citi, Tien realized that the company could leverage a huge talent pool of veterans. He and Micah Heavener, a Citi colleague and fellow Army vet, launched the Military Officer Leadership program at Citi to assist military leaders transitioning to civilian life. The 24-month rotational program connects veterans with mentors and prepares them for careers in operations and technology. It offers formal training in banking principles and financial services technology, and provides certifications through efficiency programs such as the Lean Six Sigma.
“About two-thirds of military officers leave the service after five to eight years,” says Tien. “These are the heroes and thought leaders we can pull into the bank.” 
Tien also wanted to start an employee network to support internal veteran colleagues and to boost engagement with local veteran communities and organizations in Jacksonville, Florida, where he was based at the time. Initially, Tien only knew one other veteran at that location.
“There has to be more than you and me,” he remembers saying to Heavener. “This is a 5,000-person site.” Tien was right. One building over, an Army ranger was working as a project manager in Citi’s technology group. When Tien asked him if he wanted to help start a local chapter of the military network, his reply was, “Hooah!”
Three months later, just in time for Veterans Day, Tien’s idea to bring vets together gave rise to the Citi Salutes network’s second chapter (The first was opened in Citi’s New York office).
“What’s even more amazing is that while the veterans formed the nucleus of the chapter, by 2018, more than half of the overall network consists of civilians who want to be part of the mission,” Tien says.
Over the past seven years, Tien has helped support and inspire the creation of 15 more chapters in North America and London. “The military is a brotherhood, it’s a sisterhood, it’s a family,” he says. “At Citi, I felt like I could find that form of camaraderie again, not just with fellow veterans, but with colleagues.”
Tien’s penchant for helping others is instinctual at this point. “I knew I couldn’t help serving,” he says.
When Tien moved to Atlanta in 2016, he wasn’t sure if the Citi-site was large enough to support a big network, but his colleagues proved otherwise. After reaching out to all 200 Citi employees in Atlanta, asking whether anyone had a connection to a vet — whether it be a friend, grandfather, husband or daughter — more than 60 people wrote back.
“I have often said that the next greatest generation is the post-9/11 generation,” Tien says. “These individuals are having an impact across the nation and their communities.”

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This article is paid for and produced in partnership with Citi. Through Citi Salutes, Citi collaborates with veterans’ service organizations and leading veterans’ champions to support and empower veterans, service members and their families. This is the seventh installment in a series focusing on solutions for veterans and military families in the areas of housing, financial resilience, military transition and employment.

Fighting Homelessness Among Female Vets Takes a Special Approach

Posted on by robbie

Approximately 4,300 women veterans are homeless at any given time, according to a recent report by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. When Cindy Seymour, a former Air Force sergeant, heard that number, she knew she had to do something to help her sisters-in-arms.
In 2011, Seymour founded Serenity for Women, an organization that works to improve the lives of women transitioning from the military into civilian life. The Syracuse, New York-based nonprofit does this by building transitional “tiny” homes for homeless female veterans and also connecting them with local support services.
An estimated 1.4 million veterans are at risk of becoming homeless, and women vets make up ten percent of the homeless veteran population, according to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans. Job support and financial assistance are both critical in reducing homeless veteran populations. But women vets have additional needs that require more nuanced solutions.
“Women veterans absolutely require a different approach of outreach and support than their male counterparts,” says Anna Stormer with the Women Veterans Center in Philadelphia, which reached “functional zero,” or when homelessness is essentially eradicated among veterans, in 2015. Women face a number of unique barriers when accessing services, Stormer says. “A lot of women truly are unaware of the benefits for which they qualify.”
The Women Veterans Center, for example, uses a “trauma informed” approach to help empower female veterans in making long-term housing decisions. This method addresses issues that impact many female vets, like post-traumatic stress disorder. The center also features play areas to occupy kids while their mothers are with social services.
To be connected with [the community] I think is important, and to have an organization that is vet-specific,” says Andrew McCawley, president and CEO of the New England Center and Home for Veterans (NECHV).  
With financing from Citi, NECHV created a designated floor for women and expanded its mental healthcare facilities.
NECHV’s program is one of a number of initiatives across the country with the goal of helping homeless veterans. The Bring Them Homes initiative, run by the LISC-National Equity Fund (NEF) and supported by Citi Community Development, gives pre-development grants to nonprofits that provide supportive housing to homeless veterans. So far, Bring Them Homes has created nearly 4,000 housing units, and also offers a variety of support services to vets in need.
“The greatest need is with single adults, and the percentages have been increasing with women,” says Debbie Burkart, vice president of supportive housing for NEF. “These vets deserve special attention. They have selflessly given to this country and then they’ve come back and, in some cases, we haven’t done enough to take care of them. They shouldn’t end up on the street.”
Much like Bring Them Homes, the tiny homes program in Syracuse embeds supportive services into the housing process. Once construction on the tiny homes is finished, the only thing the women need to bring is themselves — and a willingness to take part in programs that help them secure jobs and receive therapy.

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This article is paid for and produced in collaboration with Citi. Through Citi Salutes, Citi collaborates with veteran service organizations and leading veteran champions to support and empower veterans, service members and their families. This is the sixth installment in a series focusing on solutions for veterans and military families in the areas of housing, financial resilience, military transition and employment.

3 Vet-Focused Companies Helping Soldiers Adjust to Civilian Life

Posted on by robbie

Most people have switched jobs at least once, but transitioning out of the military is an experience most civilians can’t fully understand.  To soften the transition, many veteran-run organizations step in to make the process easier. Here are three organizations that epitomize comradeship.

VETERANS TO FARMERS, DENVER

The nonprofit Veterans to Farmers grows more than plants. The Denver-based organization uses agriculture to help vets reintegrate into civilian life, one lettuce patch at a time. They offer eight-to-10-week training programs in hydroponics, aquaponics and in-soil farming at no cost to veterans who apply — some may even qualify for a stipend.
“We have every background of veteran,” says Rich Murphy, co-founder and executive director. “Some want to grow food for family, some want to learn about agriculture, and some show up for no reason.”
In 2013, Murphy, a third-generation U.S. Air Force veteran who had served in Security Forces for five years, was building a career as a social worker in Denver. There, he met Buck Adams, a former Marine, who had the idea to hire vets to work at his greenhouse. With interest in urban farming and homesteading, Murphy didn’t hesitate to shift gears, and he and Adams co-founded Veterans to Farmers. “We knew that combining veterans and farming could have huge positive impacts for both communities,” he says.
The positive effects of getting one’s hands dirty are real. Take Eli, who served in both the Army and the Marines before being dishonorably discharged after a mental breakdown. Because of his mental and physical disabilities, he was struggling to adjust to civilian life. He heard about the program online and drove from Kentucky to Colorado.
“He was dealing with PTSD and there was an individual war inside him,” says Murphy. After completing two courses, Eli enrolled in college and was able to have his dishonorable discharge adjusted into an honorable one. He still gardens and now owns five acres.  
“It takes energy to go after what you need,” adds Murphy. “We have to get these people engaged, to hang out in the field, planting, reintegrating.”
Five years and more than 100 veteran-graduates later, the organization isn’t slowing down. It is currently building another 3,000-square-foot greenhouse in Fort Collins, Colorado, and launching a homesteading course that will include beekeeping as well as chicken and hog care.

HOMEFRONT ROOM REVIVAL, GOLDSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA

Hardships in the military are not just for the enlisted. While life in the armed forces is marked by a nomadic nature, spouses and families can have a hard time settling into their communities. To combat that sense of isolation, Homefront Room Revival aims to boost morale through purposeful custom home projects across North Carolina.
“People think that you’re always going to move out,” says founder and executive director Katelyn Tinsley. “So you never really move in.” Homefront Room Revival wants to change that by helping military families find a comfort in the “chaos of military life.”
Tinsley knows what it’s like to feel lonely and unenthused about her home. After almost five years as a mental health tech for the Air Force, she found out that she was pregnant with a second child shortly after her husband was deployed.
“Chasing my 1-year-old and coming home to an empty house gave me anxiety,” she says. She started decorating to make herself feel better — transforming her space into a home filled with thrift-store pieces and flea market finds — which helped her get her bearings during a tough time.
This gave her an idea: bring joy to others, one redecorated room at a time. Tinsley started picking up home décor projects for friends, and eventually launched Homefront Room Revival in 2016. The program relies on volunteers — currently that includes more than 200 service members and spouses — as well partnerships with Habitat for Humanity and the local arts council.
Not only does the organization help families settle into their homes, but it provides a creative outlet for its volunteers and upcycles furniture that would have otherwise gone to waste.
Last December, Homefront Room Revival launched Dec’ the Deployment, focusing on holiday decorations. The team spruced up eight homes, including one with a newborn whose mom “just didn’t have the energy” to put up a tree because her husband was deployed.
Tinsley sees the project as an important way to support military families. “It’s a unique way to get people involved and have that personal connection of [having] outreached to those who wouldn’t be touched otherwise.”

GREEN EXTREME HOMES CDC, GARLAND, TEXAS

A house is something many of us often take for granted, but for veterans, homes play an important role in their integration back to civilian life. Veteran homelessness is a serious problem. The National Alliance to End Homelessness finds that there are more than 40,000 homeless veterans — almost 10 percent of all homeless adults.
Green Extreme Homes CDC in Garland, Texas, is a nonprofit providing homes that are discounted as much as 50 percent to veterans and their families, and the homes themselves are anything but ordinary. The concept is simple: take old, drafty houses and completely gut them into not merely energy-efficient homes, but into Zero Energy Ready Homes — a  Department of Energy program that applies rigorous coding standards to new homes, with the requirement that they’re at least 40–50 percent more energy efficient than a typical new home.
“We are way above current codes and next current codes,” says Steve Brown, builder and president of Green Extreme Homes CDC, adding that their construction standards are more aligned to home guidelines for the year 2030. Each house they remodel features optimized plumbing, solar power hookups, efficient insulation and Energy Star appliances, which can translate into utility bills of around $2 dollars a day.
To create these eco-centric and affordable homes, Green Extreme Homes CDC teams up with volunteers from local veteran coalitions and corporate initiatives, including Citi, which has collaborated with the nonprofit since 2011.  
The team is currently working on a seven-bedroom group home in Lewisville, Texas, for women veterans with or without children.
“Right now, there are 97 women veterans living in Dallas-area shelters,” says Jean Brown, executive director of Green Extreme Homes CDC, whose family boasts four generations of veterans. “We can take in 15 to 20 female vets and provide them a home and a nurturing environment. There is no time limit for how long they can stay [in order] to get back on their feet.”
The group home, which will have a hydroponics system to help the women grow their own food, is in early development. As the project progresses, the team, including a small army of Citi volunteers, will work together on everything from landscaping to furniture assembly in preparation for the grand finale next spring.  
“It starts with housing,” Brown says. “Once you have a roof over your head you can find employment and mentoring.”

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This article was paid by and produced in partnership with Citi. Through Citi Salutes, Citi collaborates with veterans’ service organizations and leading veterans’ champions to support and empower veterans, service members and their families. This is the fifth installment in a series focusing on solutions for veterans and military families in the areas of housing, financial resilience, military transition and employment.
Correction: A previous version of this article featured outdated information on Homefront Room Revival’s volunteer count and partnerships. NationSwell apologizes for the error.

The Disaster Response Program That’s Building More Than Homes

Posted on by robbie

Susan Ward had only served five weeks in the military when she was medically discharged after an injury — but that didn’t change the fact that she wanted a life in service.  
“From that moment when I got out, I was devastated,” she tells NationSwell. “That was my life goal and plan. I didn’t know what to do. I love helping and serving people, doing what I can for people.”
That feeling isn’t uncommon for thousands of military veterans who have a hard time transitioning to civilian life. Though unemployment among veterans who have served since 2001 has gone down, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 370,000 veterans who were still unemployed this year.
Numerous transition programs exist to help vets bridge that gap, but for Ward, finding a gig — or even volunteer work — that was service-oriented was necessary for her happiness. She eventually became a firefighter in Alaska, but after 10 years a different injury forced Ward to leave yet another job she loved. She fell into a deep depression, she says, and struggled to find another role that allowed her to fulfill her passion for public service.
“I was on Facebook one day and just saw this post about Team Rubicon, and I had this moment of, ‘Oh my gosh, I need to do this,’” she says.
Team Rubicon began as a volunteer mission in 2010 after the earthquake that devastated Haiti. The organization offered disaster relief by utilizing the help of former service workers from the military and civilian sectors.
It has since evolved into an organization fueled by 80,000 volunteers. The majority are veterans who assist with everything from clearing trees and debris in tornado-ravaged towns to gutting homes that have been destroyed by floods. The teams, which are deployed as units, also work alongside other disaster-relief organizations, such as the Red Cross.
Similar to Ward, Tyler Bradley, a Clay Hunt fellow for Team Rubicon who organizes and develops volunteers, battled depression after he had to leave the Army due to a genetic health problem.
“After I found [Team Rubicon], I was out doing lots of volunteer work. My girlfriend noticed and said she would see the old Tyler come back,” Bradley says. “Team Rubicon turned my life around.”
“There’s one guy who says that just because the uniform comes off doesn’t mean service ends,” says Zachary Brooks-Miller, director of field operations for Team Rubicon. He adds that the narrative around the value of veterans has to change. “We don’t take the approach that our vets are broken; we see vets as a strength within our community.”
In addition to Team Rubicon’s disaster-relief efforts, the organization also helps to empower veterans and ease their transition into the civilian world, according to Christopher Perkins, managing director at Citi and a member of the company’s Citi Salutes Affinity Steering Committee. By collaborating with Citi, Team Rubicon was able to scale up its contributions, allowing service workers to provide widespread relief last year in Houston after Hurricane Harvey. Those efforts were five times larger than anything the organization had previously done and brought even more veterans into the Team Rubicon family.
“Being around my brothers and sisters in arms whom I missed so much, it was so clear to me the impact Team Rubicon would have not only in communities impacted by disaster, but also among veterans,” says Perkins, a former captain in the Marines. “Every single American should know about this organization.”
Although Team Rubicon doesn’t brand itself as a veterans’ organization, it does view former members of the military as the backbone of its efforts. And many veterans see the team-building and camaraderie as a kind of therapy for service-related trauma.  
“There are so many people who have [post-traumatic stress disorder] from different things, and when you’re with family you have to pretend that you’re OK,” says Ward, who deals with PTSD from her time as a soldier and firefighter. “But when you’re with your Team Rubicon family, it’s a tribe.”

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This article is paid by and produced in collaboration with Citi. Through Citi Salutes, Citi collaborates with veterans’ service organizations and leading veterans’ champions to support and empower veterans, service members and their families. This is the fourth installment in a series focusing on solutions for veterans and military families in the areas of housing, financial resilience, military transition and employment.

How to Translate Military Skills to a Civilian Resume

Posted on by robbie

A military job like U.S. Air Force aircraft controller doesn’t exactly translate to the majority of civilian career options. At least that’s how Eric Lundberg felt once he gave the Air Force his notice to retire.
Lundberg is not alone. Sixty-eight percent of veterans say that securing employment opportunities that match their military experience is one of the main challenges to finding a civilian job, according to a 2014 survey by VetAdvisor and Syracuse University’s Institute for Veterans and Military Families. “There is a critical element in transition,” says Ruth Christopherson, SVP of Citi Community Development and program director of Citi Salutes, Citi’s company-wide initiative that supports service members, veterans and their families. “That’s the translation. Not everyone knows that veteran military language.”
Some of that difficulty is a result of the military mind-set that there is a playbook for everything — including finding a job. After all, most military operating procedures, from running a nuclear submarine to changing battery frequency, are spelled out in some sort of field manual. That’s just not the case, though, when it comes to snagging a job in the corporate or tech sectors.
For Angel McDowell, who was a major in the U.S. Army’s Signal Corps, one of her challenges was that she followed the career map provided by the Army, as opposed to fine-tuning her skills to one unique specialization. In her two decades of service, her enlisted duties ranged from medical lab technician to troop commander — not one of which easily translated onto a résumé. As a result, she stuck to focusing on project management.  
“I asked my mentor for advice, hired a résumé writer and started looking for a job,” she says. “I followed all the transition steps you learn about while still in Army, but I did not have much success.”
For someone who enlists after high school or has never had to apply for a civilian job, the process can be daunting. Translating military skills to an appealing civilian résumé can be particularly challenging, because military titles are often obscure — “field officer” and “financial technician,” to name a few. Military-transition and mentoring programs, like Veterans on Wall Street or the university-accredited FourBlock (which prides itself on having a strong relationship with diverse employers), can help find clarity.
“Each veteran’s transition is unique,” Christopherson says. “Every aspect of their life is up in the air. Mentoring is that personal touch that takes the unknown and makes it less scary and less of an obstacle to be successful.”
Experts recommend that vets making the transition to civilian life outline their work duties in a typical day as well as for an atypical day. But, they add, it’s best to remove all military jargon. “Explain it as if you’re talking to a 4-year-old,” says Robyn Coburn, a résumé coach specializing in the entertainment industry and founder of WorkInProduction.com. “Then you can start seeing how your particular duties translate to job-speak.”
Veterans shouldn’t feel compelled to find a new job that exactly mirrors their former military duties. In fact, one of the perks of having general responsibilities like report acquisition and handling of multimillion-dollar equipment is that they translate to a myriad of jobs, from script supervisor to operations manager. Industries all across the board value personal interests and unique experiences that go beyond job titles.
For veterans seeking a civilian job, experts recommend creating a résumé that reflects a desired trajectory: Look up descriptions for dreams jobs and then incorporate keywords from those descriptions onto the résumé itself.
For vets who choose to go back to school, the Columbia University Center for Veteran Transition and Integration offers online modules that go hand-in-hand with specific higher education coursework. The program is like having an insider whisper all the tips and tricks to getting through school, from effective note-taking to navigating campus life. “Here is a university that understands the [transitioning] veteran,” says Christopherson. “Columbia’s program and partnerships help guide a career path into the workforce.”
Transitioning vets are also privy to tech-forward resources designed to help them enter civilian life. For example, Military.com’s Transition App, which is part of Monster Worldwide and supported by Citi, links vets with job matches based on specific experience and title by aggregating data from Monster.com’s employment website. In matching skills developed while in the military to databases, the app recommends jobs that not only target primary skills, such as leadership, but also takes secondary and tertiary skills into account. It also offers an interactive checklist to assist with transition concerns, like financial education and preparing for relocation. A planned update to the Transition App this spring will expand content for military spouses and veterans with disabilities, further assisting a smooth transition for the entire family.
Shift, a tech-focused recruiting platform for those transitioning from the military, is another service that assists with career changes. Shift’s founder, Mike Slagh, a former U.S. Navy bomb-squad officer, started the company in 2016 to give future veterans a leg up in finding tech careers by facilitating fellowships before officially leaving the military.
When Lundberg gave the military his six-months’ notice, he started to look for a civilian job. “The transition is crazy,” he says.
After 10 months of searching on his own, Lundberg reached out to Shift. The recruiter matched Lundberg’s Air Force skill set with the needs of tech companies, resulting in a three-month fellowship with Citrine Informatics, an AI platform aiding in the acceleration of materials and product development. As part of his fellowship, Lundberg educates material scientists on how to optimize Citrine’s AI platform by providing customized training.
“That’s exactly what I was doing in the Air Force,” he says. “When I’m at a training event, I can translate what I did to what I am doing now.”

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This article is paid for and produced in partnership with Citi. Through Citi Salutes, Citi collaborates with veterans’ service organizations and leading veterans’ champions to support and empower veterans, service members and their families. This is the third installment in a series focusing on solutions for veterans and military families in the areas of housing, financial resilience, military transition and employment.

A New Battleground: Financial Balance

Posted on by robbie

Life changed quickly for Ernesto Olmos when he left the U.S. Marine Corps. After being stationed in North Carolina for four years, the corporal and his wife moved to California — and were hit with a drastic increase in housing costs.
“My wife and I had prepared for some of these financial differences in advance, but the hike in rent was substantial. We went from paying $750 for a townhome to seeing one-bedroom apartments for about $1,500 in Santa Clarita,” he says.
Olmos’ mother suggested the couple apply for a four-bedroom house with Homes 4 Families. The Citi-supported organization provides affordable housing to low-income, honorably discharged veterans. Their application for a new home in Santa Clarita Valley was accepted in 2016.
In addition to providing housing assistance, the Homes 4 Families’ initiative offers a free financial education program called Clearpoint Reconnect, operated by Money Management International.  The program includes online courses, workshops and counseling for military families transitioning to civilian life.
While Olmos’ home was being built, he completed a financial planning exercise to reduce credit card debt, took educational courses to increase his long-term financial security and learned to manage his new home as an investment.  “I have never been one to think about retirement, but the but the worksheets made me realize that we need to plan for the future,” Olmos says.
For veterans early in the transition stage, counseling programs like Clearpoint Reconnect can offer a particularly helpful field guide for understanding unfamiliar financial processes.
“Having that financial education stays with them long-term,” says Ruth Christopherson, Senior Vice President of Citi Salutes and Citi Community Development, which has supported the Clearpoint Reconnect program since 2012. “Things can change, but understanding their financial plan prepares vets for bumps down the road. If one’s car breaks down or if a vet loses a job, this counseling program can keep them out of debt, and they have the education to keep moving forward.”
The program includes phone, online and in-person sessions on subjects like understanding credit and debt, and avoiding bankruptcy. Clearpoint Reconnect also offers student loan and home mortgage consulting.  

“Many veterans find it challenging to adapt to the world of civilian finances, and it might take two or three years to sort things out,” says Kate Horrell, a military finance coach. “Most people don’t understand the many ways their finances will change when they leave the military.  Certain benefits will no longer be free, and your entire paycheck will be subject to taxes.”
Jeffrey Lodick, a former Army master sergeant and current host of the “On the Other Side” podcast, is no stranger to the challenges of decoding a civilian paycheck.  After retiring in September 2017, Lodick’s shift to the private sector included a salary learning curve. “I couldn’t tell you what my salary was in the military,” he says. “I knew what I got paid on the first and the fifteenth of each month, not what was going to the GI Bill and my taxes.”

As someone who hadn’t scrutinized his military paycheck for 20 years, navigating private sector tax paperwork took effort. “As silly as it sounds, I didn’t know how to fill out a W-4,” Lodick says. In addition to a new salary, Lodick entered a different tax bracket, which created another set of unknowns. “I never had any assets to deal with. It’s going to be a learning process.”
Lodick’s situation is not unique. “Military retirees are stupendously unprepared for changes in their tax situation,” says Horrell. When they return to civilian life, vets are often unaware that they need adjust their taxes to account for military retirement and avoid under-withholding.
“You could end up owing more than $10,000 because of under-withholding two different sources of income,” says Horrell. “Any income changes need to be reflected in a W-4. This doesn’t seem to be immediately apparent to everyone.”
The upside? Veterans and tech communities are responding to the challenges with a growing set of tools to ease the transition. In addition to Clearpoint Reconnect, whose services are free to all military personnel, Military.com, TheMilitaryWallet.com, and LaceyLangford.com are excellent resources that focus on military money issues.

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This article is paid for and produced in partnership with Citi. Through Citi Salutes, Citi collaborates with veterans’ service organizations and leading veterans’ champions to support and empower veterans, service members and their families. This is the second installment in a series focusing on solutions for veterans and military families in the areas of housing, financial resilience, military transition and employment.

From Combat to Classroom

Posted on by robbie

Since the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions in 2003, more than 500,000 service members have entered into post-secondary education. While the military offers financial support to veterans transitioning from combat to classroom, it doesn’t address one recurring issue that student vets face: Self-esteem while in the classroom.
“I did feel a bit nervous competing with people not my age,” says Samantha Demezieux, a 28-year-old former Marine who attends Columbia University in New York City for Middle Eastern studies.
A 2016 study found that nearly half of veterans felt unprepared for civilian life — especially those who were in combat and suffer from medical issues — and even less prepared to deal with the anxieties of being on a college campus.
“When you enter the military, it’s so easy to go from a civilian and turn into a soldier, but not the other way around,” says Michael P. Abrams, executive director for the Center for Veteran Transition and Integration at Columbia University. “We need to be better at engaging veterans and letting them know that they have opportunities. It’s definitely an area for improvement.”
There’s a measurable benefit in having vets on campuses, says Abrams. He says it’s the mixture of street smarts and book smarts that make for better diversity in classrooms.
“Diversity is something everyone’s talking about, that should also include experience and age and what you’ve done with this life,” he says. “When you’re discussing Middle Eastern politics in an academic setting, it helps to have a vet who has been in Iraq in 2012 with the elections. It brings such tangible learning experiences to a classroom you wouldn’t otherwise get.”
Demezieux says her — and other student vets’ — perspectives have been widely welcomed, which has remedied some of her initial anxieties.
“I’ve sat in a couple classes where the professor or teacher’s assistant was privy to me being a vet, and they ask for context,” she says.
In addition to political perspectives, vets enter the classroom with a variety of soft skills taught in the military that education programs — not just universities — have been able to capitalize on, such as on-the-fly learning and leadership qualities.
At NPower, a nonprofit that specializes in training veterans for tech jobs, the organization capitalizes on those soft skills to help place their students in jobs.
Graduates of its 26-week coding bootcamps have seen tremendous success, with some veterans securing jobs that allow them to support themselves and their families — even without advanced coding skills that stem from a more formal education.
“What we’re seeing is that companies are hiring from us because they are beginning to recognize that veterans have such tremendous life skills they can bring to the table,” says Brittany Worden, program manager for NPower’s veterans courses. “What they’re saying is, ‘Hey, we want personality and willingness to learn over skills.’”
Worden says that Citi, one of the primary businesses that recruits from NPower, has been most receptive in hiring vets, with more than 100 interns and close to 50 full-time staff. “They’ve just taken our students and built on what they learn here within their position.”
One of those students, Nick Carillo, was an NPower intern and now is the program manager for Citi’s Architecture and Technology Engineering Analyst program.
“In the first few months after separating, I applied to at least 80 positions. I felt it was hard to understand corporate structure and life, so it was hard to answer interview questions at first,” he says, but adds that the soft skills he learned in service have helped him in his current career. “Being drilled to aggressively attack goals and to never give up has just been invaluable to me. I feel that’s why people look to hire veterans; they want people that not only have talent but ambition to put that talent to use.”
One of the biggest challenges at NPower is getting veterans up to speed on job skills, including how to manage the process of looking for a job.
“What I’ve learned is that a lot of [veterans] haven’t had to do an interview. It’s just not something you need to do in the military. They don’t know how to ask questions, they don’t know how to answer tough questions, and in return they don’t have lots of confidence,” Worden says.
That lack of confidence is universal, according to Abrams, especially since asking for help is somewhat taboo in the military.
“It’s tough to ask for help in the military. You’re the person that is supposed to help others. That is the culture and the attitude, especially in the Marine Corps,” he says. “It’s very difficult to go to someone and say I need help because it shows vulnerability, when in reality it means you’re very strong.”
Though admittedly hard, according to Demezieux, getting over the fear of needing help can result in being a better student.
This article is paid for and produced in collaboration with Citi. Through Citi Salutes, Citi collaborates with veteran service organizations and leading veteran champions to support and empower veterans, service members and their families. This is the first installment in a series focusing on solutions for veterans and military families in the areas of housing, financial resilience, military transition and employment.