Meet Vito: Exercise science (B.S.'23)

I chose exercise science because of their personal option program and gave you, I think 20 credits to choose whatever classes you wanted to take that would help you with your major. 

It's was great. My experience with the faculty was phenomenal. Everyone was very understanding of my schedule. I'm wasn't your traditional college student, I had a full time job and was in the military. And there were days I had to miss class because of the military. So everyone worked with me and everyone kind of gave me a little bit of wiggle room.

Biggest piece of advice, is looking for those scholarships. They're out there and people just need to find them. There's scholarships for ethnicity, family, income and more. There's scholarships everywhere. 

So the internship that I applied and did was at KAT Strength & Conditioning. Essentially, my job duties was to learn how the gym functions because it's not your traditional gym, they see clients in one hour blocks and everyone has a different workout, but it's a personalized workout. So it was more so an evolution of learning their workouts and then learning how to properly show them to do the workouts and knowing what muscle groups to work out. And then towards the end, I started getting put in charge of running workouts for people.  

It's hard and I don't say hard as in like physical, more so mental. And the reason why I say that is switching between that military lifestyle and then coming back here was a bit difficult in the sense that  I have to remember that not everybody is in the military, even though I show up 30 minutes early before class.

It's a good campus and the student vet center is nice. And the veteran community is very helpful. I felt like I was back with my unit every time I was at the student veteran center, its full of people, and everyone if smoking and joking like they would be if they were actually out in the field. And they walked you through how to apply, how to get your benefits. And if they didn't know how to do it, they'd put you in touch with someone who does know how to do it.  

When I applied to Western, I got contacted by the Office of Student Veterans, immediately. I would say like maybe two days after, it was phone call saying they need this, this and this to get my GI Bill started. And we call it breaking It down Barney style. So, basically, meaning like they walked me through every step on how to get my housing allowance, how to get my tuition reimbursement, all that stuff. And every semester, I'd say maybe a month or two prior, I could always count on an email from them.

I would go to the Veterans center a lot, kind of like my little escape to the military reality. And, you know, it was pretty easy to find resources and find the help you need. All you have to do is send an email or go to the Student Veterans Center, because I guarantee you someone's in there doing something. 

The short answer, I live 5 minutes from here. The long answer, I live 5 minutes from here.  

Actually, it is because I moved here from Arizona and one of my closest friends graduated from here and recommended the program.