This is great. Anything that helps veterans is a good thing.

The Los Angeles Times reports.

USC hosts ‘boot camp’ for military veterans aimed at easing culture shock of college life

Charena Lafayette served in the U.S. Marine Corps for 13 years, but no amount of military training prepared her for the challenge of completing a rigorous four-year college program.

How do you analyze an author’s underlying message or frame a thesis in an academic paper? What exactly are you supposed to say in a seminar, and are you allowed to disagree with your classmates? And how do you discuss democracy and foreign policy with 18-year-olds — and socially fit in?

At USC, the Warrior-Scholar Project aims to help veterans like Lafayette hone academic and social skills that may be lacking or forgotten, dissuading many from considering a top-tier school.

Fifteen participants, active-duty and retired, recently completed the weeklong intensive program, which is in its second year at USC, the boot camp’s only West Coast campus. For those who may have put off their academic ambitions for military life, the program teaches them how to adapt to college and study effectively.

The program also aligns with the USC’s mission to encourage more community college students and those who are the first in their family to attend college to consider competitive four-year universities, said Vice Provost Mark Todd.

Veterans and other nontraditional students often spend years chipping away at online courses or taking community college classes that fail to yield a degree. The boot camp, which began last Sunday, immersed participants in a learning environment akin to being full-time students at a university.

“By the time they’re done here, they’ve succeeded in something that they previously thought they wouldn’t be able to succeed at — hanging in there with some of our best faculty in a really rigorous curriculum, on campus, living as a student,” Todd said. USC plans to host the Warrior-Scholar program again next year.