After service, new purpose: UC’s student veterans find their next mission

Across the University of California's 10 campuses, a quiet community of students shares a bond forged through military service. Some have traded uniforms for backpacks; others still wear both. Whether veterans or active duty servicemembers, these military-connected students bring a sense of discipline, purpose and camaraderie that shapes how they learn and lead at UC.

Meet a few of UC's veteran and active-duty students and alumni; click the links below to jump to their stories.

Hanh Dinh, U.S. Marine Corps veteran, UC San Diego
Harwood Garland, U.S. Navy veteran, UC Irvine
Amanda Lassiter, U.S. Coast Guard Reserve, UC Irvine
Emily Li, U.S. Army Individual Ready Reserve, UC Riverside
Sebastian Smith, U.S. Air Force veteran, UC Davis
Angeliz Vargas Casillas, U.S. Air Force National Guard veteran, UC Riverside
Nate Wentland, U.S. Navy Reserve, UC Davis
Campus veterans centers

Hanh Dinh, U.S. Marine Corps veteran, UC San Diego

B.S., Cognitive Science, 2024
Undergraduate Student Veteran Program Director, Cornell University
First-generation college student

The daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, Hanh Dinh always knew she wanted to go to college, but didn't see a way to pay for higher ed. Her two older brothers had tried community college, but dropped out. When one of her best friends joined the military, she followed suit, enlisting in the Marine Corps for four years with the goal of earning the GI Bill benefits that could finance her university education.

As an ammunition tech, Dinh was doing "Amazon, but for bullets" - logistical and supply chain work. Returning from Japan to California for her last year and a half of service, she enrolled in community college, determined to blaze a path into higher ed. That's when one of her veteran friends asked her if she had heard of the Warrior-Scholar Project, an all-expenses-paid summer boot camp that familiarizes veterans with four-year universities and prepares them for top schools. It sounded too good to be true, but it wasn't.

"When I left the military, I had a lot of self-doubt about going back into school," says Dinh. Attending a bootcamp at Yale University after her first year of community college boosted her confidence, and she eventually transferred to UC San Diego. It was intimidating, but she reached out to the veterans center before even arriving on campus. Soon, she became a regular.

Wanting to give back, Dinh became a leader in supporting other nontraditional students as a transfer peer coach, often sought out by other military-connected students. With help from her mentors at the Triton Transfer Hub and Career Center, she went on to obtain her master's in higher education administration at Penn and landed her current job as the Undergraduate Student Veteran Program Director at Cornell University.

"What was really integral to my success at UC and beyond was just knowing there are so many people like me who are unfamiliar with the higher education system, and connecting with them and other student veterans," Dinh says. "It was empowering to know that, 'Hey, we've done a lot of challenging things in the military, but now we can forge our own path, whether that's similar to what we did in the military or completely different.'"

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Harwood Garland, U.S. Navy veteran, UC Irvine

Second-year Ph.D. student in Population Health & Disease Prevention
M.S, Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 2019; M.A., Medicine, Science and Technology Studies, 2018; B.A. Cultural Anthropology, 2016
First-generation college student

Growing up, Harwood Garland dreamed of working on the water. He loved books about the ocean, the smell of the sea, boats - the perfect background for a sailor. Dissatisfied after a year of community college, Garland enlisted in the Navy, landing a job as a hospital corpsman.

Garland imagined his life at sea was about to begin; instead, he was sent to Field Medical Training Battalion to become a field medic for the Marine Corps. "Less than a year after joining the Navy, I found myself standing in Iraq wearing Kevlar armor and holding a rifle and a medical bag, and it was a whole different deal," he says.

He hadn't aimed to become an infantry medic, but he embraced the esprit de corps of the Marines and thrived. After three years in the infantry, Garland joined the crew of the USS Kearsarge (LHD-3), finally living out his dream of seeing the world from the deck of a ship. Along the way, he discovered a new passion: medicine. After 5 years in the Navy, he made the difficult decision to leave and pursue his medical education on land.

Garland finished AA degrees in math and social science and transferred to UC Irvine, where he activated his GI Bill and found a community of veterans. He earned a B.A. in anthropology and applied to medical school, but was not accepted into any programs. He earned an M.A. in medical anthropology and applied again, with the same result. After earning an M.S. in clinical research and facing another round of rejections, he had to change course.

"I couldn't afford to apply again, but I found a good job at the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer and was accepted into a Ph.D. program in epidemiology where I intended to study military veteran suicide prevention. During that program, my brother committed suicide, and I couldn't continue the work - I dropped out. With much love and help, I worked through my depression and began to incorporate my personal understanding of suicide into my epidemiological one. I applied to Ph.D. programs again and was accepted."

Now pursuing a doctorate in Population Health & Disease, Garland is again researching veteran suicide prevention, work shaped by both personal loss and professional insight.

"Our job at a university as scholars and researchers is to try to perceive what will be forthcoming in the world. What will the world look like in 2030 or 2040 or 2050? What problems will we be facing then that we ought to be preparing for now? The question I'm thinking about is, what are the issues we're going to face down the line in terms of veteran suicide? That is a problem I intend to do something about."

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Amanda Lassiter, Coast Guard veteran and reservist, UC Irvine

Fourth-year transfer student in Informatics
Staff member, UC Irvine Veteran Services Center
First-generation college student

"I grew up in a very small town in rural Virginia. A lot of farm land, a lot of trees, but an environment where I knew that an education wasn't going to be afforded to me unless I worked for it myself," says Amanda Lassiter, a senior at UC Irvine. Drawn to humanitarian work in search and rescue and the promise of an education paid for by the GI Bill, Lassiter was 15 when she first told her parents she wanted to join the Coast Guard.

Fast forward nearly two decades and Lassiter, 34, has 15 years of military service under her belt. She spent her early years of active duty as a small boat mechanic on the Chesapeake Bay before enrolling in IT training. The program brought her to Coast Guard stations in Petaluma and Point Reyes, where she fell in love with the West Coast.

Like many service members, Lassiter accumulated college credits wherever she was stationed. These eventually led her to transfer to UC Irvine as an Informatics major, planning to use her degree as a springboard into tech. Although she traded a full-time military post for student life, she still serves in the Coast Guard Reserve, reporting for duty in San Diego once a month. It's work she loves, though balancing it with academics can be tough.

"I was five weeks into my first quarter at UC when I was recalled to active duty to work for FEMA hurricane response," she explains. "Initially, I was frustrated because I had already gotten halfway through the quarter and I was so excited to step forward into being a full-time student. But the mission made it worth it." Lassiter was gone for two months and had to scrap the fall quarter, retaking the same classes in winter. But her resilience and Coast Guard discipline kept her on track.

Lassiter now works at the UC Irvine Veteran Services Center. "It can be a really hard transition to leave the military ecosystem where you're told what to do, where to be and when to be there. Now we're all kind of out on our own, just finding our way as students," she says. "Finding each other and being able to lean on each other and talk about our experiences, reflect on where we've been - that's so important. We're not wearing the uniform anymore, but we're not alone. We're all doing this together."

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Emily Li, U.S. Army Individual Ready Reserve and California Army National Guard veteran, UC Riverside

First-year M.D. student; B.S., Biology, 2025

As far back as middle school, Emily Li knew she wanted to be a doctor. One of her younger brothers is autistic, and she credits growing up in a family where caregiving was a constant as the root of her passion for medicine.

Li's parents had immigrated from China, and her father put himself through optometry school in the U.S. They expected their children to pursue higher education, but the family faced major financial setbacks in the wake of the 2008 recession. To Li, college seemed financially out of reach, especially as she saw her father struggling with his own medical school loans. While contemplating her options, she happened to visit an Army booth at a career fair. The recruiter told her about the GI Bill. "I thought, 'You mean I can become a doctor and not put myself in debt?' It was a hallelujah moment."

With her parents' permission, she joined the California Army National Guard and did her basic training the summer after her junior year of high school. After graduation, she completed her advanced training, signed her contract as a combat medic, and applied for UC Riverside. Throughout college, she was a California Army National Guardsman, reporting for monthly drills.

In the Guard, Li gained expertise in emergency medical care and leadership. Beyond that, she says, "I got so much career experience and so much life experience. I found a community that I love, and I'm truly passionate about serving."

Her service gave her the internal resources to face new challenges as well. "My military experience made me more empathetic and more resilient. I remember sitting through Organic Chemistry finals and thinking, 'I did not march 12 miles at Fort Jackson with the biggest blisters you've ever seen just to fail now.' It gave me strength to draw on."

Her academic career led her to apply to UC Riverside for an M.D., and her military service led her to an Army active duty health scholarship program that is paying 100% of her medical school costs. In exchange, she'll work as a military doctor for four years after she finishes her residency. Her ultimate goal: to serve the Inland Empire community as a VA primary care doctor.

"Somehow I've found two passions that align and fuel each other, one for medicine and one for serving the veteran community," says Li. "I'm doubly lucky. It's like walking in a dream."

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Sebastian Smith, U.S. Air Force veteran, UC Davis

Third-year transfer student in Plant Biology
First-generation college student

Sebastian Smith is making less of a career pivot than a total revamp. At age 48, he is getting his B.S., with the goal of earning a doctorate and becoming a scientific researcher. Just three years ago, he was retiring after a 20-year career in the Air Force.

Stationed in England with his wife and three kids as he neared retirement, Smith was given the choice of where to finish his service. He'd taken many college classes over the years, but wanted a new path. "I have always been interested in science and loved discovery," he says. "When I was trying to narrow down my interests, scientific research just clicked for me."

Landing on Plant Biology, Smith looked into programs and found that UC Davis topped the list. Academic destination in focus, he relocated to Travis Air Force Base, just 30 minutes from campus. After retiring, he enrolled at Solano Community College to complete the coursework needed to transfer.

This isn't Smith's first foray into a four-year college. Straight out of high school, he enrolled at Syracuse University. But no one in his family had graduated from college, and not knowing how to do it, he ended up taking on a huge course load while juggling two jobs. After he dropped out, he spent several years managing a Blockbuster video store, where he met his wife. When she got interested in the military, he went to see the recruiters with her, intending to talk her out of it. Instead, he ended up being the one to enlist and became an Air Force cybersecurity specialist. He excelled in the role, but it wasn't his calling.

"The military forced me to confront my weaknesses and learn to do things that were uncomfortable, like public speaking," he says. "I had so many spectacular experiences throughout my career, and I met so many amazing people. But I didn't necessarily enjoy my professional field."

Now, Smith is soaking up the UC Davis experience. Older than most classmates, he's become a mentor figure. "They appreciate that I'm a veteran. Sometimes, when they might not be comfortable approaching a professor to ask a question, they'll come and ask me instead. I've had more than one professor tell me that it is like having a second teacher in the classroom."

One highlight is sharing the experience with his kids: his youngest lives with him in student housing while finishing high school online, and his two oldest are following in his footsteps at Solano Community College. "I transferred to UC Davis using the TAG program, and now my oldest son wants to do the same. My kids are just a few semesters behind me, so it's awesome to share my experience and help them in the process."

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Angeliz Vargas Casillas, U.S. Army National Guard and U.S. Air Force National Guard veteran, UC Riverside

Fifth-year Ph.D. student in Mathematics
First-generation college student

Each May, UC brings together finalists from all of its campuses for Grad Slam, a competition showcasing some of the university's most impressive graduate student research in live presentations of 3 minutes or less. The students pack years of work into just 180 seconds, vying for thousands of dollars in prize money. It's a high-pressure situation. But not as high pressure as working on a Black Hawk helicopter, one of Angeliz Vargas Casillas' roles before she made it to the Grad Slam stage and took home third place for UC Riverside.

Vargas Casillas had already earned her bachelor's in math when she walked into a job fair and accidentally discovered the military. She had plans to teach high school, but ended up at an Army National Guard table. They didn't have the exact combo of math and computers she was looking for, but a poster of a Black Hawk helicopter caught her eye. She enlisted and got a job as a helicopter mechanic.

"I was awful!" she says. She didn't know anything about mechanics at first, but eventually graduated at the top of her class. Yet she saw even greater opportunities for applying her math and computer science skills in the Air Force National Guard, so she transferred and became a cyberwarfare operator. Then she took yet another leap to pursue her doctorate.

Vargas Casillas was a National Guardsman for the first four years of her UC Riverside career and was even activated on a state mission, completing a deployment in the middle of her Ph.D. On campus, she got involved in the veteran community, creating a role for herself as a liaison between the women's and veterans centers, where she helped both veterans and their family members, known as "dependents" in the military-connected world.

"At UC Riverside, we're very focused on providing services to dependents, which I think is really special because obviously as a veteran, you would hope that they're taking care of your kids too," says Vargas Casillas. "Your kid is my kid - we're a family, we're going to help each other out."

Her passion for service also extends to her prize-winning research, which uses applied math to understand the cellular basis for wound healing aberrations known as keloid scars. As it has been since she first saw the Black Hawk helicopter poster, for Vargas Casillas, the sky's the limit.

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Nathaniel Wentland, U.S. Navy Reserve, UC Davis

Second-year MBA student
Peer advisor, UC Davis Veteran Success Center

Nathaniel Wentland's resume reads a little differently than most of his classmates at UC Davis. For starters, he drove a $442 million ship through the Strait of Hormuz in the middle of the night while the rest of the crew slept, lived out of a cargo container in Djibouti during the pandemic and spent a year documenting military casualties in Afghanistan. His latest challenge? Earning an MBA.

Campus veterans centers: Supporting the military-connected community

Every UC campus has a veterans center that provides military-connected students with a wide range of resources. Dedicated staff and peer advisors help navigate VA and CalVet benefits - programs that can cover tuition, housing and other expenses for veterans and their dependents - but their role extends far beyond paperwork.

Lively hubs stocked with snacks, sofas, and school supplies, the centers host career workshops, counseling groups, social events, Veterans Day ceremonies, and graduation celebrations. Most student veterans start as transfers, and many are also first-generation college students. Whatever a student's background, veteran center staff help connect them with the right academic, wellness, career or transfer resources.

The centers also strive to create a community that joins the military and civilian worlds. "I've seen so many people grow and learn from each other through their military connection," says Nat Kapp, who manages the Student Veterans Resource Center at UC San Diego. "There might be two people who never would have crossed paths in life, but now they have a commonality to build a relationship across difference. That's something really beautiful that happens in our space."

Find your UC veterans center

UC Berkeley Veteran Services Center

UC Davis Veterans Success Center

UC Irvine Veteran Services Center

UCLA Veteran Resource Center

UC Merced Veteran Services

UC Riverside Veterans Resource Center

UC San Diego Student Veterans Resource Center

UC San Francisco Student Veteran and Military Support Services

UC Santa Barbara Veterans and Military Services

UC Santa Cruz Military-Connected Students Support