November 11, 2021
Campus News
Double Duty
PAGE 8
Lise-Anne Orlich balances an intense schedule taking ROTC classes off-campus and being part of the women’s rugby team, all with traditional college classes. __ By Collin Atwood __ @collinatwood17
The choices that young adults have to make after graduating high school can be intimidating. Whether it’s stepping right into a full-time job, going to a four-year college or enlisting in a branch of the military, their adult life is about to start. A path has to be chosen and it’s rare that someone is able to do two at the same time. Lise-Anne Orlich, a junior at Springfield College studying sports biology, chose one of those unlikely paths by joining the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program. The ROTC is a program that allows students to enroll in college and take normal college courses while training to be an officer in a branch of the military. In 2019 Orlich was one of those students getting ready to graduate and she was battling with the choice of going to a traditional four-year college or enrolling in the United States Military Academy. It was during her decision process that she found out about the ROTC program, but she wanted to put all of her attention and focus
on one lifestyle. “I wanted the experience of either a full college experience or full military-college experience. I didn’t really want the in between,” Orlich said. The interest in serving in the Army is in her blood. Multiple of Orlich’s family members have served in the Army and she has a cousin who is currently stationed in Alaska. “I’ve always wanted to serve. [It’s a] big thing in my family,” Orlich said. Originally, Orlich decided to take the traditional college route and put her interest in serving in the Army aside. She wanted to try attending Springfield College as just a student to see if college was something she would enjoy. Even though most of her college time has been tainted by COVID-19, Orlich loved her first two years on Alden Street and decided it might be time to give the Army another look. “I wound up loving school and made some great friends here at Springfield, so I thought
Lisa-Anna Orlich (left) with a pair of her ROTC classmates. (Photo courtesy of Lisa-Anne Orlich)
that it would be a great idea for me to try both.” Orlich decided to reach out to her advisor at the tail end of her sophomore year about joining the ROTC program at Springfield. Due to the small size of this program
at Springfield, her advisor wasn’t too familiar with the program and how it worked. The ROTC program at Springfield currently has 10 cadets and no on-campus professors. The students who attend Spring-
field College have to take their ROTC courses at Western New England University or the University of Massachusetts. “My advisor didn’t know much about it so it was kind of me, on my own, reaching out to
