MILWAUKEE -- Rachel Weiss was on her way to becoming a high school science teacher while attending the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point, until one life changing day. That was the day her brother, Ben, marched across the parade field during his graduation from Army basic training at Fort Benning, Ga.
It was then that the Menomonee Falls, Wis. native put her dreams of being a teacher on hold and decided to join the Army as well.
Weiss enlisted as an Intelligence Analyst after graduating UWSP in January 2018 with a Bachelor of Science Education with a teaching certificate. Spc. Rachel Weiss arrived at basic training at Fort Sill, Okla. in February, 2018.
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When she was in high school, Weiss said, the Army was not an option she knew she had. She wants to change that for her future students.
“I want my students to see (the Army) as an option,” she said. “I want to be a role model for my students.”
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“I think there are a lot of learning opportunities in the Army,” she said.
While at basic training, she was assigned to a leadership position in charge of other trainees. She said that she now has the confidence needed to get up and speak in front of people.
“A lot of the skills I am going to learn in the Army I will be able to take directly into the classroom.”
She said that her experience as a student teacher exposed her to a diverse group of people and she is able to communicate with people from different cultural backgrounds.
She went to Advanced Individual Training to become an Intelligence Analyst at Fort Huachuca, Az., and graduated in August, 2018.
She said there was a lot of overlap from her college classes to her Army schooling and was very interested in the terrain analysis classes at Fort Huachuca.
“A lot of the skills that I learned in education are very useful in the Army and vice versa,” she said.
She said her classroom is going to be more efficient and organized when she goes back to teaching after her time in the Army.
“My goal is to be either an Earth or environmental science teacher. I love science. But I also love the student relationships you can have,” she said and enjoys watching students grow from day to day or from the beginning of the school year to the end of the school year.
Her first duty station with the Army is with a military intelligence unit in Wiesbaden, Germany.
