Armed With Knowledge
Student to Soldier…and back again.
Courtesy of The University of North Dakota 

In making the transition from student to Soldier and back again, Corianna Kubasta has experienced some of the most stressful challenges a college student can face these days.

The help she received from fellow veterans and the Veteran Services Office are just part of what makes the University of North Dakota a Military Friendly School.

“I’m really lucky that there are a lot of people on campus who have been through this,” said Kubasta, 22, a native of Lidgerwood, N.D. “I call them, ask what to do, and they help me out. It’s what I hope other people coming back from military duty will experience.”

G.I. Jobs ranks UND in the top 15 percent of Military Friendly Schools in the nation, based on the results of a survey of 7,000 schools.

Books to Bullets
Just before the end of the fall semester of her sophomore year in late 2007, Kubasta left UND for deployment in Iraq as a specialist in the North Dakota Army National Guard, 191st Military Police Company.

“A lot of my friends were going, so I volunteered to go with them,” she said. “My teachers were really good about it. They made sure I finished all the necessary course work for getting credit for my classes. I didn’t have to drop classes or take incompletes.”

Kubasta, a physical education and exercise science major, traded her textbooks for an assault rifle, a pistol, body armor and camouflaged fatigues. Her unit patrolled the Rusafa district in eastern Baghdad, including Sadr City, one of the poorest and most dangerous parts of Baghdad.

“We trained the Iraqi police and a few other security entities,” she said. “We were outside in Baghdad every day. It was like your adrenaline was always going. You had to watch your back and have everything correct. Your life depended on it every single day.”

“We opened schools and hospitals, and we secured areas,” she said. “We provided people with security so their kids would feel safe when they were out in the yard playing. The violence went down about 90 percent while we were there. It’s a really good feeling when you hear about that.”

Soldier to Student
As her tour of duty neared an end, Kubasta decided she wanted to return to UND, but limited communications complicated the process. She managed to get in touch with Carol Anson, UND’s veteran certifying official.

“I couldn’t have done it without Carol,” Kubasta said. “I told her I had no idea what I was supposed to do, but I wanted to go back to school right away. She told me that she’d set everything up for me and got me into classes.”

Within two weeks after her final mission in Iraq, Kubasta was in Grand Forks, a few days late for the 2009 spring semester. 

Tough Transition
“Coming back was so slow-paced compared to what I was used to,” she said. “It was hard to go to school the day after I turned my rifle in.”

Not only was the climate vastly different, but she also had to readjust to college life as a civilian. Kubasta instinctively scanned crowds for trouble, even though she knew there was no reason to do so.

“I’d find myself watching my back,” she said. “I couldn’t sit in front of the classroom. I had to sit in back because I couldn’t stand having people behind me.”

Kubasta also wasn’t sure how faculty and other students would treat her if they knew she’d served in Iraq. She didn’t want to talk about it.

“The first class I had was foreign policy with Dr. Berger [Albert Berger, associate professor of history],” she said. “He was really supportive of the two veterans in the class.

“When it came to talking about post-9/11 foreign policy, he was really cool about asking us our opinions on what Iraq was like compared to what the textbook said. He was really respectful of us.”

The reception she received in a course on international human rights was similar.

“It was constructive discussion, and it was a very good learning environment for everyone in the room,” she said. “It definitely made my first semester back a whole lot better.”

And when people learned Kubasta was a veteran of the war in Iraq?

“They told me it was awesome that I’d helped people in another country,”she said.

Kubasta anticipates graduating in May 2011, then attending law school.  

About the University of North Dakota
Ranked by U.S. News & World Report as one of the Top 200 Best National Universities, UND offers more than 200 academic and professional programs, including 100 graduate and 45 online programs.

Fully accredited, UND is the state’s most comprehensive intensive research university and the primary center for professional education and training. Founded by the Dakota Territorial Assembly in 1883, six years before statehood, UND was intended to be, and has remained, a university with a strong liberal arts foundation surrounded by a variety of professional and specialized programs.  UND is one of only 47 public universities in the nation with both accredited graduate schools of law and medicine. 

For the Military

• In-state tuition rate available to all active duty military, veterans, and spouses/dependents regardless of residency status
• UND participates in the Yellow Ribbon Program, which provides up to $10,000 per student per year.
• Full-time Veterans Counselor
• DANTES approved
• Accepts some CLEP and ACE credit
• Servicemembers Opportunity College consortium member