- I was an E1 in the active Army as a property book officer.
- I was a Corporal in Bravo Battery
of the Second 111th Field Artillery.
- I was in the Judge Advocate General Corps.
I was an attorney.
- Well, I was a Petty Officer First Class
in the United States Navy.
- I was a Sergeant of Marines at Miramar base
in San Diego, California.
- Initially, I was in the organizational behavior program.
After a semester, a switched over to
health behavior research and evaluation.
- I just became really interested in
sort of being a disease chaser.
And then that's really what I do, I chase diseases.
And I collect data and I analyze the data
and then I write about the data on interesting diseases
that no one knows anything about.
- I actually decided when I was in Abu Ghraib
that I wanted to pursue political science.
Really, government.
I suspected that the Iraqi form of government
might not be fitting
and there were rule of law problems going on.
So I started getting more interested in government
while I was over there.
So that's why I decided to go to graduate school,
to study political science, to get, to go deeper.
- I have been teaching part time at a USD law school
and I really wanted to take it to the next step.
I wanted to be able to become a full time
faculty professor at some point.
And so CGU has the only program in southern California
where you can combine both political science
and public policy, US public policy,
in one school, in one PHD degree.
- What finally brought me to Claremont Graduate University
was that I was looking for a school
that I wouldn't get lost in.
I was looking for a school that I could
make personal connections with.
- It's a small research institution,
which is kind of what I was looking for.
- Because our classes are small
and our faculty-student ratio is very small
our students get to know their faculty very, very quickly.
- Most of my health behavior research courses
are six to 10 people at the most.
- Because the classes are almost all
structured as three-hour seminar types,
it's very easy to be a commuter student
because you can just put two classes
in one day, back to back.
So you can keep your full-time job,
you can keep your family responsibilities.
And because it's one, three-hour seminar,
you really get to focus.
- We have staff and administrators
and faculty members who are veterans themselves.
We have alumni who are also veterans from CGU
who work at some of these other institutions.
And so it's a lot broader of a network
than even as it seems.
CGU has the largest population of student veterans
currently of any of the colleges.
And then when you move into the alumni ranks,
the network just continues to build and build.
- It's like a giant brotherhood and sisterhood,
no matter where you go.
- I met veterans in the first semester
and I've been hanging out with them ever since.
- It's a really small community that supports each other,
regardless of where you come from or what you're studying.
So it's a, it's a small, happy place.
I'm an hour, hour and a half away
from anything I could possibly imagine doing.
I'm really active, I go hiking a lot, I'm always outside.
And it's really fun here.
- In southern California,
I don't even have to look at the weather.
I like to camp, I have a off-road motorcycle,
and they have trails all through the mountains.
Beautiful views, perfect weather all the time,
incredible beaches.
- We're not right in the thick of LA.
We're actually just on the edge,
between San Bernardino County and LA County.
And there are a number of military bases in the area,
such as 29 Palms and also in San Diego.
- So the GI bill provides tuition support.
And under the post-9-11 GI bill, additional housing,
for books, and expenses for school,
as well as a housing allowance.
CGU as a institution on a per-year basis
is more expensive than what the VA would normally pay out,
and so the Yellow Ribbon Program basically has,
is an agreement between CGU and the Veterans Administration
to pay, dollar-for-dollar, the difference that's left,
would normally be left to the veteran to pay,
to ensure that they get 100% tuition coverage
during their time here at CGU.
So that's a big benefit to the veteran.
Especially considering, you know, being able to leave
with a Master's or PHD with no student loan debt.
- CGU helped me define, really, what I was looking for.
I came in looking to just be a college educator.
Now I ended up starting my own business.
I teach night courses.
And it's through the mentorship that I got here
that I was able to find those kind of goals
and redefine what I really wanted out of life.
- CGU has a core belief system
that is similar to the Navy's.
It's not all about getting credit,
it's getting something done.
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