Military Girlfriends' College Careers Are Just Important As Military Careers
"The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it from you." - B.B. King
Being a military girlfriend in college can be hard. You not only have to worry about your class workload, but also about your soldier's graduation dates, promotion ceremonies, or whatever it may be. As a significant other you feel inclined to go to all of your soldier's special events. I understand everyone won't always make it but when you can go, I say go.
I never truly felt behind until I started dating a military significant other. My soldier is away in another state or across the world, and I am stuck at college. I understand I am not married so it's not like I can pack up and leave to be with him and take online classes. The military life is honestly the great unknown. My significant other and I both have different schedules and we have gone months of doing different routines, so sometimes it's hard to pinpoint quality time together or just visits in general.
One thing that has helped me in the past when it comes to scheduling visits with my soldier is talking to my professors. If you just explain to them that you have a personal issues to attend to, most of them will be willing to work with you. Sometimes they'll give you your assignments ahead of time or they'll let you turn it in the next class period since you made prior arrangements.
Also, planning how long you are going to be gone is very essential. You never want to tell your professors you will be gone for just that one class on Tuesday, but then you miss a week of class. I believe that since you are missing the class anyways at least be honest about how many days you plan to miss and be sure to stick to that. These professors are not exactly obligated to give you your missed work, and once the professors say "no you can't make up your test" that's when that feeling of getting behind starts to creep back in.
Remember that if you can't make your soldier's special event then it's okay. We all know soldiers have important things to do but so do the military girlfriends attending college. I don't advise that you go around skipping midterms and finals because your soldier passed a PT test and wants to celebrate.
Your soldier should also be considerate of how busy your college life might be. You may not be able to come to every single thing, and your soldier should be understanding of that. I have seen so many military girlfriends say how their soldier assumes that their life isn't busy or stressful and how they basically should be able to have time freed up for them. I believe that military girlfriends that are in college have it very stressful and they may not have tons of free time because of studying, organizations, etc. These college assignments can be very overwhelming and my college career is just as important as their military one.
The misconception of the military girlfriends dropping everything that matters to do whatever it may be for their soldier has to stop. I am not saying I wouldn't drop things sometimes for my soldier, but I just think it's important to know that your college education matters too.
