As he began planning for a transition from a seven-year Army career to the civilian world, Tyler LaChance came to a realization. “My transferrable skills were largely soft skills, and I was missing a lot of the knowledge of the business world,” he says.

An MBA was the logical next step, and Vanderbilt (where he earned his undergraduate degree) was the logical place, especially since it was so close to his Middle Tennessee hometown and offered the Bass Military Scholars Program.

He visited in January 2020, six months before his service commitment was to end, and sat in on an MBA class. “I was partnered with an Army vet who took me around campus and class, and then we grabbed lunch with a handful of other vets. The community just seemed so supportive that I knew it would make the difficult transition [to a civilian career] easier.”

Tyler’s experience confirmed his initial impression. “Vanderbilt is incredibly veteran-friendly,” he says. “We have a relatively large population of vets who can readily help with all aspects of the transition, from navigating VA healthcare, housing, Reserves, active-duty grad school experience—anything you can imagine.”

He found the faculty equally supportive. “They are open and accessible and willing to go the extra mile to help you out,” Tyler says. “For instance, I was working on a part-time internship where I felt in over my head and outside my expertise, so I reached out to professors. I had two different professors take time out of their personal lives to help me review my projects, and one even provided me with a book on my specific project.”

After his first year, Tyler felt he was well on his way to a smooth transition. “I left the Army not knowing where I was headed,” he says. “I knew what I was looking for in a career, but I didn’t know which careers satisfied the criteria or how to position myself to enter those career paths. Vanderbilt has helped me identify my future career path and successfully navigate my way there.”

Fun Fact: Tyler owns “more guitars than I care to count” and has never tasted a cup of coffee.

We have a relatively large population of vets who can readily help with all aspects of the transition, from navigating VA healthcare, housing, Reserves, active-duty grad school experience—anything you can imagine.