From Patrick Forystek, Student Veterans Resource Center Coordinator: “Carson has gone above and beyond to engage with his new student group. He’s easily the most engaged advisor I’ve ever had, including at schools that didn’t have the PAVE program but offered peer advising. On numerous occasions, he’s given tours to his students, introducing them to key staff and showing them the location of important offices. He routinely meets his students for lunch and typically brings them by the Student Veterans Resource Center to see the space and get some SVRC swag. Carson is simply the ideal advisor and has worked incredibly hard to foster a sense of belonging and community with his student charge. A great example of this is an interaction I had with a new student. I have a first year experience course for veterans and only a few have been in the resource center. Recently, I had a few more stop by the SVRC only because they were meeting Carson for lunch. It’s possible these students would have never visited the SVRC without his work. Carson is also a featured student on our new SVRC promotional video. Most recently, he represented MSU’s SVA Chapter at NatCon.”

From Carson Zeiter: “I think that working as a Peer Advisor helps to ease the transition to college life for student veterans because having someone else there who has gone through similar issues before and can help you find the resources you might need can help with the isolated feeling experienced by so many veterans. I think it helps to bridge the gap between us and our fellow students who (seemingly) have a much easier time adjusting to student life because as veterans we tend to have a bit more going on in life outside of our classes that sometimes only another veteran can understand. My favorite part of being a Peer Advisor is getting to connect with, and get to know personally, other veterans at my school. Connecting with other students that simply do not understand how or what we feel can be difficult for many veterans, and I find that it gives me sort of a sense of camaraderie that I know so many of us miss deeply when our time in the military ends.”