10 Things You Learn in the Military That College Can’t Teach You

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Almost all of us have been through our college or school at least for that matter. We learn a lot of qualities in self-development and co-working in college to prepare ourselves for so-called “real-life”. But unfortunately, over the years it seems like what is being taught in colleges is highly overrated, hyped and we just wait for our degrees to be issued to us asap to at least land a decent job.

But those who choose to join the military, it’s a whole different experience now. You learn new things and make such a close bond with your friends that you could not have made with your friends in college. Here are some such things you learn in the military that college can’t teach you, simply because they focus on marks and performance:

Table of Contents

You Learn a lot Better: First things first. Completing an advance training means that you have spent between 2-12 concentrated months learning how to perform a particular occupation (law, education, medical, EME, signals etc.) and that you have performed it well enough that you can carry it for your life. This is totally unlike getting a college degree where we just study for marks and gain very little out of it, mostly because either our college is not coping with the latest or the syllabus is highly outdated unless you take any internships.
You Learn to Learn More Quickly: Some more quickly than others, military personnel have the capacity to absorb information more quickly and efficiently than others. Unlike many academic settings, the training and education timeframes are compressed. Colleges tend to stretch these out since they make more money the longer they keep you there. Military education and training facilities try to get people in and out as efficiently as possible.
You Learn Perseverance: Unlike college, where committing to a goal and succeeding is hard, where no one is there to make you get up in the morning and go to class, the military is a bit different. Instructors are there with you from dawn to dusk to build you back up. They will be your mother, father, brother, helper, friend, and everything till you are in training, trying to push your limits until they bring the best out of you.
You Learn Teamwork, Real Teamwork: One of most primitive, integral aspects ingrained from the time you join the military to the time you’re separated is the requirement that you be able to function as a part of a cohesive team. This is drilled into cadets since basic training. The whole point of marching, chanting and singing, collective training is to establish the group’s collective mentality.
You Learn Critical Analysis of Situation: How are we assessed of our analytical thinking in college? If “A” is so and “B” is so, “C” could be? Isn’t that how they take our analysis of critical thinking? But in the military many hours are spent on deployments in chaotic situations, gathering information, comparing data, discussing the meaning and implications of thoughts. And when their analysis is correct military members achieve their goals and when they are incorrect people could die unlike in college where we get an ‘A’ for good and ‘C’ for worse.
You Learn How To Work Under Pressure, Or You Could Lose Lives: In college what we think ‘working under pressure’ is completing and submitting assignments before the deadline. Sure, there are deadlines, performance pressures, and student loan stress, if we consider that. But that stress is almost nothing when compared to that of what the average military person learns to cope with. Military people learn to cope with the stress of constant exposure be it performance deadlines, deployments, balancing a home life, or leading men to war. You better deal with the stress right or your men’s lives are at risk.
You Learn To Communicate, Like a Military Man: When presenting information or delivering a eminar to an audience (classmates, teacher) either orally or through a presentation, your communication skills are totally different from what you would be doing the same in front of senior leaders. The military requires that you write papers explaining your understanding of complex real-life situations and making well thought out arguments for a course of action to be briefed to senior leaders. Even the most junior enlisted member has been asked at least once to orally brief a senior leader. Many of them do it as a matter of routine, given the number of inspections and command visits a unit receives.
You Increase Your Grasping and Attention Power: Although this may as well be taught in college, it’s definitely something emphasized while in the military to an almost nauseating extent. We starting paying attention to every minute detail of what is being told to us, we even start becoming more conscious of our surroundings. All of these, are expected of you in the military.
You Learn Time Management: Taking 4 to 6 classes a semester, juggling assignments and exams, and keeping up with fraternity events or sport teams means you have to be very cognizant of your time management. But in the military an ability to manage time and to multitask, both run simultaneously. Sometimes you need to deliver more than expected and things that just don’t go the way they were planned to contend with on a daily basis. The military runs on a “no excuses” mentality, so service members are expected to deal with the situation as presented, figure out how to adapt to and/or overcome road blocks, and achieve the goal.
You Learn Punctuality And Discipline: For those that training, actual military service runs them ragged, with training, exercises, deployments and long hours. You join the military by signing a contract. Come any problem in the world, most of them who join complete their contract because it becomes their personal goal to serve their country in whatever capacity they can. Choosing to serve in the military is choosing a tough lifestyle, and these volunteers could have made other, perhaps easier, choices. And this my friend, is being disciplined to yourself and punctual to the military.