Veterans Mental Health

It can be tough living life as a student veteran, but Fresno State offers resources for veterans who are going to school. More than 5,000,000 Veterans have a bachelor’s degree or higher. VA College Toolkit Fresno State is home to some of those veterans.

Zenia Zipp is a U.S. Navy and Air Force veteran. Zipp is a Geometrics engineering major.

“You can come in here and just be your veteran self,” Zipp says.

She says many students in her classes can’t relate to her, but the Fresno State Veteran’s Resource Center feels like family.

Navy veteran Jeremiah Cedano says that attending college right out of the service was nerve-racking, yet he feels that resources at the VRC helped him overcome those challenges.

“They made it so much easier for me to get information, where I don’t think I would’ve got the information if I hadn’t got emails from them,” Cedano said.

Christy Gorden is a certifying official and an advisor at the VRC. As a Coast Guard veteran, she understands how important it is to have a place for veterans to go to so they can feel welcome, especially when they feel mental health challenges.

“At our center, we actually have a veteran counselor who works for the VA, but he’s linked to Fresno State and so he specializes in PTSD and working with veterans,” Gorden said.

That is important as seven out of every 100 veterans will suffer from PTSD at some point in their lives.