ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — For many students at the University of Central Florida, graduation marks the start of a new chapter.
For Preston Strenth, it is the culmination of a journey shaped by military service, personal loss, and a determination to completely reimagine his future.
Just a few years ago, Strenth was stationed in Kuwait serving in the National Guard. At the time, earning a computer science degree and landing a job in the tech industry felt far out of reach.
That changed after a tragedy involving a fellow service member.
“There was a vehicle rollover accident, and we lost one of our service members,” Strenth said. “He was 20 years old, was expecting to go to college up at the University of Michigan.”
The Osceola County native said that loss became a turning point for many in his unit.
“You have to do something with your life because we never know when we’re going to get called,” Strenth said.
After returning home, Strenth enrolled at UCF, making the difficult transition from active duty to student life. He left military service in September 2023 and found himself sitting in classrooms with teenagers just four months later, and all while tackling one of the university’s most demanding majors: computer science.
Strenth said the sudden shift in structure was one of the hardest adjustments.
That is when he connected with UCF’s Office of Military and Veteran Student Success, a campus program designed to help veterans transition into academic life.
Program director Mike Kepner said the support system is producing measurable results.
“Over the last four years, we’ve watched the metrics, and we are seeing an increase in both our completion and our persistence rates,” Kepner said. “We’ve increased our GPA average over the past three years.”
The office pairs transitioning veterans with peer mentors and provides guidance ranging from academics to career preparation.
Strenth said many of those lessons were entirely new to him.
“It was kind of like coaching me and mentoring as well,” he said. “Like saying, ‘let’s go over what a resume is.’ I realistically never had a resume before. I never had LinkedIn until I came here.”
Now, as he prepares to walk across the graduation stage, Strenth already has a job lined up in the tech industry with BNY, an opportunity he says came through connections he made while attending UCF.
He says the years of pressure and sacrifices ultimately paid off.
“There have been a lot of long nights, there have been a lot of stressful moments, and we have climbed the mountain, and now it is time to reap those rewards,” Strenth said.
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