My name is Noah Whitaker. And this is my Augusta University story. Definitely was inspired by my dad, I wanted to pursue some sort of service within the military. He was in the Navy. He told me to go down the officer route. And I had some friends who were telling me about the ROTC program here at Augusta University. And so I started going to PT sessions and trying to like, experience it as like, I immediately fell in love with the whole idea of being a part of an organization like it. That's why I decided I wanted to commission as an Army officer, and here I am, senior year. Right now I am the S-5 of the battalion. So I do a lot of public outreach and engagement. So I look for volunteer opportunities in the local area that our Jaguar Battalion can reach out to and help with. There's a lot to offer here at the Jaguar Battalion. I would definitely highly recommend it. Even if you don't necessarily want to commission as an officer, you'll grow a lot. I have put a lot of work the last four years specifically to go into cyber. Being the first Cyber CORPS officer is a huge honor and still dawning on me that I'm the first year paving the way for a lot of cadets. There are only 90 available slots for cyber this year and there was 1000s of applicants for it. So to standout I made sure I had a good amount of work experience. I worked as an IT specialist, and I worked as a student assistant for the network security team here at Augusta University. I had to make sure my GPA was high, participate in athletics and volunteer opportunities here. And the biggest thing was I applied for an internship here at Fort Gordon, and I was the only Augusta University Cadet who attended of 40 others and I ranked number 1 out of all 40 cadets. Distinguished military graduate means you're in the top 15% of the ROTC program in the nation. Me and one of the cadet in the program proceed that this year. It's a huge honor just super glad to have received that this year. But initially after commissioning, I'll be going to Basic Officer leadership course here at Fort Gordon. And with that, I'll be trained to be a 17 alpha which is the cyber warfare officer. After that, not necessarily sure where the army will take me but I would love to travel a little bit.
