Thinking about my Future

My future is fairly set in stone already barring some disaster. I am already committed to being an officer in the U.S. Army; my commitment is for 6 years. So, working with Student Affairs is fairly out of the question. I do believe that I would pursue if right now I was in a situation where, I did not have employment already lined up for myself after graduation. Working with MSS is not really directly related to being in the army on the surface level, but being interdisciplinary in nature, it is all related, using the same leadership techniques to accomplish different goals in different situations. First, the military is part of the reason why student affairs was created at universities. This became because the military began to use the GI Bill as a recruiting tool to get civilians to join the army. Obviously this was during war time, but after the war was over and troops came home, they began to change the dynamics of colleges and universities. College became less of an exclusive institution and now people of any race, class and gender could attend college with the GI Bill, so the classrooms became much more diverse immediately and unexpectedly. Also, to add to that, the war veterans came to college not only as different classes of citizens, but with issues related to have experienced war. Student Affairs departments were created to address the issues that were born out of the GI Bill and the Higher Education Act, that made college more accessible to citizens that have not had the resources to attend colleges. I learned about this the first day of our classroom development, Student Affairs was created to assist with issues that arose out of having military students and students that needed financial assistance to get into college.
Another part of our professional development was an in depth teaching about how to successfully run an organization, and some of the common mistakes that most programs commit. I was previously the President of my chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc. and many of the lessons we learned I wish I had known previously. Also, many of the teachings were things that I had already learned in Army ROTC, but I always thought of them as, how the army works, not even thinking about transitioning some of it to other organizations. We learned goal setting, fund raising, distribution of literature, recruitment, resource management, time management, energy, having monthly, weekly and daily goals, and how to address members that fail to carry their load. Some of the things that I will be sure to take with me was goal setting, it is more important that I thought. If you set a goal for everything that you do, you will be more successful. If you say you want ten members, then at your recruitment events, you should also have a goal there to reach MORE than ten people, so that after attrition, you will still have ten. Then you have to plan, how are you going to get all those people to your recruitment event, which is more effective than just saying, we want ten people, hope we are going to get it somehow. Goal setting in the military is no different, but knowing how to set goals correctly from day one will be an advantage to have.
In the classroom, we also learned about various leadership styles. Outside of the classroom topics that we have discussed there is much application with actually assisting in running and evaluating programs that the MSS and its member organizations host, which are many in number. I am working with three programs right now, the biggest is being a part of the planning for ASU’s Martin Luther King Jr. rally next semester. The experience with running these organizations is a great insight to problems and situations to expect when working with a large group of peers. It is also great preparation for anything that is based on management, which is what being an Army officer is about. It would be too simple to say what I am doing is unrelated, but taking an analytical look at what I am doing right now, it is the same thing that I will be doing as an army officer, minus the weapons. Making this experience relevant to what I will face in the military is what will make the internship count. Trying to only do what they ask without looking deeper, will not benefit my career.