Why MathVets? 1/15/2021
Why MathVets? 1/15/2021
by Dan Alvey
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As I entered graduate school and academia after my service in the Army, I felt a dull sense of isolation which was hard to describe. While my fellow graduate students have proven to be fantastic friends and colleagues, I missed some of the camaraderie that came with being in the Army. I had no other veterans I could talk to, aside from old friends who were still in the Army and far away.
At first I tried to essentially close the book on that chapter of my life and move forward just as any other graduate student, but eventually I realized just how isolating it could be, having no one else to talk to who understands the experiences veterans go through. In the winter of my third year of graduate school, I saw on the news that there was a large explosion in Afghanistan. The news essentially didn't filter down to any of my fellow graduate students, but I was frantically reading articles, trying to figure out where it was and if any of my friends were deployed there at the time. Eventually I discovered that a friend of mine, who I attended West Point and Armor Basic Officer Leader Course with, was killed in the explosion.
I felt completely isolated. It's a hazard of being in the Army that you have friends who die young, and while I was in I would have been able to talk to my fellow officers or NCOs about what I was feeling, and they would have all understood. Almost everyone in the Army has lost a friend. None of the graduate students I spent every day with would understand, or so I convinced myself, so I never talked about how his death affected me, because there were no other veterans I knew at all in my field.
I started really wishing there were other veterans in math I could talk to about the struggles of graduate school, the job market, transitioning to civilian life, or the pain we still feel losing friends we haven't seen in years. On Twitter I managed to find one or two other veterans in math, which was a revelation. I wasn't the only one!
The catalyst for this website was that I was contacted seemingly out of the blue by another veteran in math, also working on her Ph.D. and entering the market. We emailed back and forth and the idea started percolating that there should be a network or resource for veterans in math to share stories and discover each other. I searched hard to find an organization that already existed. Not discovering one, I created this website. I hope to populate it with posts from other veterans in math about their experiences, to find resources for veterans in math and list them here, and to eventually create a system for networking and mentorship.
When I entered graduate school five years ago, I thought I was going to be alone as a veteran in math for the rest of my career. Now that I know I'm not, I want to ensure no other veteran in math or entering the field thinks they are isolated again, and I hope this website can do a small part in helping to make that a reality.
Dan Alvey served five years in the Army and deployed to Afghanistan in 2012. He is now a graduate student at Wesleyan University expecting to complete his Ph.D. in mathematics in May 2021.
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