How a first-gen University of Tennessee veteran helps others get past 'hard days'

Becca Wright
Knoxville News Sentinel

Students graduating from high school tend to spend their summer soaking up the sun and making a few bucks before college.

But three days after Megan Byrd graduated in 2015, she took off to South Carolina's Parris Island for boot camp with the U.S. Marine Corps. 

"I took a different route just because I was nervous about college and the financial burden that I could possibly go through because my family wasn't that rich," Byrd told Knox News. 

Years later, the now-24-year-old has a new life at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. She knows what it's like to be worried about college, so she dedicates her time to helping fellow first-generation college students and veterans find their purpose.

"Megan has a passion for working with student veterans, and always goes above and beyond to help our servicemembers," Jayetta Rogers, the director of UT's Veteran Success Center, wrote in an email. 

From boot camp to biological sciences

Byrd spent five years with the Marines. After boot camp, she completed her Marine combat training at Camp Geiger in North Carolina. She was trained as an air traffic controller in Pensacola, Florida, and spent the rest of her military career in Oahu, Hawaii.

Megan left the service in the spring of 2020 and enrolled at UT for the fall semester. But instead of having a summer to prepare for college, the pandemic made it difficult to relax. Her transition was far from normal. 

"It was literally that day flying back home that everything was shutting down completely," Byrd said. 

When she got back home to Cleveland, Tennessee, she was stuck inside with nothing to do but wait for classes to start. 

"It was kind of like mentally frustrating and mentally debilitating," Byrd said.

That wait made Byrd question her decision to leave the familiarity of the military, but a last-minute option to attend a Warrior-Scholar Project camp quickly helped her gain confidence.

"Being able to be with other veterans who were like-minded, who want to go for higher education, who want to better themselves — that aspect was a big confidence booster," Byrd said. 

The Warrior-Scholar Project offers college-preparatory academic boot camps for enlisted veterans and transitioning service members like Byrd. The program helps set up veterans for success and navigate the cultural shift from one life phase to another.

"Campus is very different for student veterans," Rogers said. "The average age (of veterans) is between 26-28, some have families, some are single parents, and some have full-time jobs. All of that, while transitioning to civilian life as well, can bring about unique situations."

When classes started, she dove in head first. A premedical biological focus filled up her schedule with 18 credit hours of classes. She made straight A's her first semester.

"I was like, 'Wow, I can't believe I did this. I can actually do this. It's working, I just need to motivate myself and believe in myself,'" Byrd said. 

After her first semester, Byrd started helping students like her succeed. 

Fighting for veteran and first-generation students

Megan works at the Veteran Success Center on campus to help veterans who are just starting their higher education journey. 

"Student veterans are often met with what we call the 'double-whammy,' meaning they are transitioning into the role of a civilian, but also transitioning into the role of a student," said Thomas Cruise, the program coordinator for the UT Veteran Success Center. "It is our job to ensure that these transitions are met with as much ease as possible and ensure that they are fully supported."

Megan educated students on veteran-specific benefits, scholarships UT offers to veterans and relevant campus programs like the Student Veterans Association, also known as VOL Fighters.

"It's really mainly just a community and support group to provide veterans with other veterans that they can connect with on campus," Byrd said. "We cover a wide demographic of different various majors and minors, and some people are always stuck on the (Agriculture) campus or some people (are) always stuck up in the engineering buildings. This is a way the organization has a way for them to connect with each other when they don't really see each other every day at school or during classes and stuff."

As president, Byrd is revamping the organization after the pandemic unraveled a lot of work that had been done. 

She's also been building from the ground up a new student club for first-generation college students.

"My experience is, of course, different from those who have family members and parents and stuff that have been to school," Byrd said. "I think the hardest thing for me was feeling like I was a little bit behind everybody else because they had parents were like, 'Oh, yeah, this is the application process, this is how you do this, this is how you apply for classes and how you get scholarships, financial aid and stuff.' And I really didn't have that because, of course, my parents didn't go to college."

The club, 4FirstGen, works closely with the first-generation initiative of the Division of Student Success at UT.

Finally, she's giving back to the program that helped her out in the first place. She's now a Humanities Fellow at Warrior-Scholar Project. 

"I was getting to reach out to other veterans who are transitioning and getting to encourage them and motivate them and tell them, 'Hey, you're doing great. Like, you're here. That's the main thing, like look at you. You're like showing yourself by even just coming here to this program and applying yourself mentally and academically,'" Byrd said.

Honoring veterans at UT

UT was recently named a 2021-22 Military Friendly Gold School. It's also the 45th best public university for veterans, according to the 2022 U.S. News and World Report undergraduate rankings.

"I figure the best piece of advice for any veteran going back to school is just take it one day at a time," Byrd said. "And don't let your hard days control you."

UT has several events to honor veterans on Thursday:

  • 10 a.m.: The Veterans Success Center will host Coffee with a Cop, where student veterans can join UT Police Department veteran officers for food, coffee and conversation
  • 2 p.m.: In the Veterans Success Center, a Swag and Go event open to all first-generation students will provide the opportunity to pick up T-shirts, caps, and other branded items
  • 3:30 p.m.: Army and Air Force ROTC will sponsor a wreath-laying ceremony at the site of the future Armed Forces Memorial in front of Brown Hall
  • 5:30 p.m.: A campus-wide Veterans Appreciation Dinner will be held in the Pilot Flying J Ballroom of the Student Union. Retired Major General William Gary Beard, a UT alumnus and a lawyer in civilian life who commanded US Army Reserve units in Kosovo and Iraq, will be the guest speaker. UT’s Army ROTC will present a color guard. Faculty, staff, and student veterans should have received a digital invitation to the dinner.