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For many people, picking a career at 18 years old is not a good idea, but for ������Ƶ alumna Melissa Lute (BSB/HRM, 2013), it happened anyway — and serendipitously too. While there were ups and downs along the way, she found her happy ending. Here’s her story.

Lute met with a military recruiter when she was 18 years old and fresh out of high school. The recruiter explained different roles, but Lute turned down the chance to be a medic. (“I pass out and turn pale around medical stuff,” she says.) And her dad, a veteran, talked her out of aircraft mechanics: “He said, ‘Melissa, I love you, but you are not mechanically inclined.’” That left the option to work in human resources and personnel, which did get her dad’s endorsement. “He knew that out of all these things this was a job that can translate to the civilian sector.” HR it was.

The choice may have been made through the process of elimination, but during a decade of service, Lute developed a zeal for HR. “I saw that if you take like 30 minutes to sit down with people, to help them, make things better — that makes a difference,” she says. 

She found a school and underwent an application and enrollment process that she describes as “a spork in the eyeball” — but she was shocked to see she had to keep waiting: “They said, ‘Oh, well, you can start next semester,’ which was going to be four to six months away. I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’”

Instead of waiting, Lute turned to ������Ƶ. Six weeks later she was in class and on her way to a Bachelor of Science in Business with a concentration in Human Resource Management. 

Lute’s time at ������Ƶ got off to an auspicious start, with the GI Bill^® covering her tuition. She was also able to earn credit for prior learning and experience. “Every single course or training that I took resulted in college credits,” she says, “even basic training.”

She was able to attend in-person classes for a year in Nashville, where she lived at the time, before moving to hybrid and online classes. This flexibility meant a lot to Lute: “I saw my dad go back to college full time when I was a child,” she says, and that made her aware of how much she needed flexibility as an adult returning to school. Like many of her peers, Lute had family obligations and other commitments in her life at that time. School needed to fit in with those commitments — not the other way around.

The biggest adjustment, however, was the contrast that Lute discerned between military HR and HR in the civilian world. “In the Air Force, HR instructions are literally law,” she says. “I needed to learn to adjust to working with civilians and having to explain the why and having to get their buy-in for things to happen.”

Lute’s time at ������Ƶ helped her understand the differences and see how to turn her military experience into civilian skills: “Otherwise, I would have had these years of experience that would have meant nothing when I went to outside.”

At times it wasn’t easy. “I will never, ever, ever forget the 10 weeks of statistics,” Lute says. “I literally had a party when it was done.” She persevered, and points to other classes, such as employment law, as spaces where she was able to see real-world applications of her studies. “Looking at real case studies, things that have actually happened, how they were adjudicated and who it affected — that was real to me,” says Lute. Such lessons helped her develop skills she still uses today.

Another bright spot for Lute was her classmates, fellow working adults who made working together a pleasure. “We found that group dynamic,” she says, describing them as “storming, forming and norming” as a team — a team she keeps in touch with as they take their own career journeys.

Lute’s education continued to take twists and turns, with the credits she earned toward her bachelor’s degree leaving her just one class shy of an associate degree while still in the Air Force. “I did it backwards,” she says before correcting herself, “or, I guess, my way — like Frank Sinatra.”

Her transition to civilian life wasn’t without bumps. “The military and private sector — they’re two different languages in two different books from two different genres,” she explains. Just as she took a chance on herself by returning to school, she found employers willing to take a chance on her, including a small consulting firm. “They really helped nurture and grow and be patient with me and help me through that transition,” she says.

One experience there stands out to Lute, which was time spent working for a department of corrections as a contractor. She gained a new perspective, a change that Lute describes as transformational and led her to rethink how she saw the prisoners she was serving, as well as instill a desire to provide direct and heartfelt care.

That commitment helped Lute once again learn something new, this time about herself. “This is going to sound so cliché,” she says, “but I have always loved training, mentoring and empowering people to be the best versions of themselves.” This realization, along with her experience, helped Lute transition to working in learning and development for a major food distributor, where she has worked for the past two years. It’s a role that allows Lute to celebrate what she calls “ripple effects.” “When we treat people like human beings, they take that, they’re more engaged, and they’re going to turn around and bring that to someone else.”

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GI Bill^® is a registered trademark of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). More information about education benefits offered by the VA is available at the official U.S. government website at .