Interviewed by Anh Cao and Casey Cheng
My name is Andrea Goldstein. I’m a US Navy Veteran, originally from New York. I went to Trinity School in NYC and grew up on the upper west side of Manhattan. My parents divorced when I was in eighth grade, but they’re both happily recommitted now, and I have four step-siblings. This created a really big, blended family that I love. After my mom and stepdad moved upstate, I did as well and fell in love with it— I now live in Kinderhook, NY. I served in the Navy on active duty from 2009 to 2016 after graduating from the University of Chicago, studying history and classics. Afterwards, I attended The Fletcher School at Tufts University to get my masters degree. I was most recently CEO of Service to School, a college access non-profit that serves veterans.
I was motivated to join the military because it felt like a call to serve. I’m not from a military family at all, besides my grandfathers serving in WWII, so my parents were shocked when they learned I wanted to join the military. They didn’t understand it at first, but they were supportive of me once they realized I was serious about it. My friends, on the other hand, were less surprised. They knew that I was interested in military history and often made choices that were not common. They were more along the lines of “how did you not see this coming?” rather than extremely shocked.
The most meaningful experience I had during my term is the people I served alongside. The camaraderie is incredible and it was an honor to serve all over the world with people everywhere from the US. I still keep in touch with some of the people that served with me, oftentimes through Instagram DMs. The transition from being in college to working in the military and vice versa was hard but in different ways. I knew it was going to be hard to get through officer candidate school and become militarized. However, I also didn’t realize it was also going to be difficult to leave the military and transition back.
When I completed my time in the military, I became involved with Service to School, a nonprofit that provides service member and veterans free college application support and mentorship to help them get into the best colleges and universities possible. S2S works with both service members and top colleges/universities to increase access to high quality higher education. I recognized that I had a good education. However, I did not see other veterans at the University of Chicago, especially within the undergraduate population. I noticed that my fellow sailors were underserved when applying to colleges. S2S helps fill this gap. Since I believe that veterans are an invisible minority, a college campus would be a good place to bridge this understanding where minds are open and we are already trying to start a dialogue. In the future, we would like to expand and reach more service members and veterans.
If there’s anything I’d like to share, it would be that there are so many ways to serve. My time in the military was my way of serving, and it made for an incredible career. I was given so much responsibility for national security decisions, the leadership of other people, managing equipment, and a lot of financial decisions when I was just 22. You don’t get that experience at an early age anywhere else. It was amazing and still is. Now, I still have this opportunity to serve in these outside roles where I’m punching above my weight because I got to start doing that when I was 22. Everyone should find a way to serve that’s meaningful to them.