Info for newly-admitted Military Veterans at GS

Congrats on being accepted to the best place for student-veterans in the country!

My name is Alex, and I’m a 6-year veteran of the USMC, and currently serve as the Communications Director for Milvets, the student-veteran organization at Columbia University.

Milvets was founded in 2002, and is currently one of the largest groups on campus, representing more than 400 current undergraduate student-veterans, with hundreds of alumni.
The goals of Milvets are:
-To provide social support and help veterans maintain that sense of comradery they had while serving
-To connect veterans to academic resources such as tutoring from upperclassmen, and advice on choosing courses
-To help veterans explore different career fields by bringing in employers from various industries for exclusive info sessions
-To assist veterans in finding jobs by connecting current students to employers and internships, and connecting you to Milvet alumni mentors in your chosen field
-To celebrate our accomplishments as a community and blow off steam through regular social events every month, and a Marine Corps Birthday Ball-style gala every Spring.

You can connect with Milvets on:
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/pages/US-Military-Veterans-of-Columbia-University/121901711330727
Twitter - @Milvets
Website - http://milvets.columbia.edu/
Email - milvets@columbia.edu

If you are a newly admitted student, be sure to sign up for our private email list to hear about events and opportunities, and gain access to our private facebook group.
http://milvets.columbia.edu/mailing-list

Also, if you are a veteran travelling to New York City to visit campus for an academic planning session, tour, interview, or other reason, don’t spend money on an expensive hotel! Reach out to us and we will find a veteran willing to put you up for the duration of your stay.

A few FAQs:

Q: Is Milvets just a drinking club?
A: Nope, though we do love hitting the bar to socialize after our meetings! Milvets connects our members to great opportunities they would otherwise have no access to. There is, however, no participation requirement. Every student-veteran can come to as many or as few events as they want. Regular announcements are made via our email roundups, and on the private facebook group, so you can keep track of what is going on.

Q: Is Milvets just a for people interested in Investment Banking and Consulting?
A: Absolutely not! This is a persistent myth. In reality, we host Veteran Career Initiatives (VCIs) for many different industries. Last semester alone we held panels and networking sessions for Nonprofits, Venture Capital, Journalism & Media, and Tech. One of the reasons for this myth about career opportunities revolving around finance and consulting is because those two industries recruitment cycles occur in the Fall, right after the semester starts, and therefore some of the first VCI meetings of the year feature banks and consulting firms. Newly admitted students sometimes go to these first couple meetings and then walk away with the mistaken impression that those industries will be the only ones to be featured, and then don’t go to future meetings.

Q: I got out of the military for a reason. Why should I hang out with other veterans?
A: Maintaining a balance is important. One of the most common pieces of advice we give to newly admitted veterans is to “break out of the veteran bubble” and make friends with some of the other non-veteran students. That said, the purpose of Milvets is to support the student-veterans, and it is filled with people who understand where you have been and what you are going through, who have been-there-done-that. Even if you decide the meetings aren’t for you, I strongly encourage you to join the mailing list and facebook group. You never know when something might pop up that catches your interest, or when you might encounter a problem that the community can help you solve.

Feel free to post any questions here and I’ll do my best to answer them.

For veterans thinking of applying to Columbia University, or other top schools, I highly encourage you to make use of the following resources:

Service to School
http://service2school.org/
S2S is a veteran-run non-profit that provides assistance with the process of applying to colleges. It provides test-prep resources, interview-prep, peer-editing for your essays, and assistance in translating your military experience into terms that will make sense to college admissions officers. You will also be matched with a mentor who is a current student-veteran at the school you are applying to, to give you insider tips about that school’s process.

Warrior Scholar Project
http://www.warrior-scholar.org/
WSP conducts all-expenses-paid academic boot camps for transitioning veterans, hosted at great schools such as Yale, Harvard, and U. Michigan. Students receive training in how to succeed at an elite college, with tips on academic skills like test-taking, coping with large amounts of reading, and constructing essays, as well as advice on the admissions process directly from admissions officers.