Julian Ortiz always knew he wanted to find a way to serve his community. After dropping out of high school and giving community college a try, his path took a turn after he wrecked his grandmother’s car in front of a Navy recruiting station. The Houston native ended up enlisting and lived in Japan for four years—traveling all over the South China Sea and Southeast Asia—before volunteering for a Navy recruiter tour in New England.
Now a second-year majoring in business economics, Julian continues to strive to support his peers while taking advantage of all the UChicago community has to offer.
Why UChicago?
I had never really heard of UChicago until I got involved with the Warrior Scholar Project, a nonprofit that prepares service members and veterans for success in higher education. I was attending an event at Columbia, and happened to meet someone from UChicago. When I looked into the school I thought, wow, this place sounds amazing.
UChicago is notoriously known for its academic rigor. I believed that the College would be the perfect place to exercise the life of the mind, while also testing my limits and putting my whole GED story to rest and actually graduating.
And then I learned about the Veteran Scholars Program at UChicago, which is the perfect marriage of the two with my life circumstances. The specialized support it offers—the summer programs to help us prepare academically, personalized academic advising, housing support and everyone’s efforts to reduce the barriers to success for non-traditional students—is just awesome.
After I was accepted, this program made my whole transition to UChicago seamless.
What is an experience that stands out during your time here?
The camaraderie of the veteran community has been amazing, but I've also been welcomed with open arms by the traditional student population as well. I've been able to kind of step into that older sibling role with a lot of my classmates in the circumstances where it felt appropriate. That dichotomy of being able to be a mentor while being mentored by the best professors in their fields in the world is pretty cool.