After Service, New Purpose: UC’s Student Veterans Find Their Next Mission: Amanda Lassiter

This is an excerpt from UC Newsroom. 

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 service members, 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.

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.”

– By Apollonia Morrill with Robyn Schelenz, UC Newsroom

See the full article on UC Newsroom