Guns and boot camp, before freshman year

Whether it's going to college or getting a job, high-school graduation usually means more freedom.

But for Engineering exchange student Weijie Poh and College sophomore Shijie Lu, the end of high school was the beginning of a grueling stint in the Singapore Armed Forces.

"Carrying a gun and learning warfare - it was definitely something I wasn't used to," said Poh, an exchange student from the National University of Singapore.

Lu and Poh are among those international students who have either served or will be required to serve military duty for their home countries in the near future, according to Rodolfo Altamirano, director of international students and scholar services at the Office of International Programs.

And while these students see military service as an important - and often challenging - step in their lives, ultimately, many would rather be in the classroom.

While there are no data to suggest how many students have served in the past, 11 are currently serving in militaries overseas, Altamirano said.

"Some students finish their military services and then come to Penn, while others are asked to go home in the middle of their studies," he added.

Lu and Poh, like all other able-bodied, 18 year-old male citizens of Singapore, were drafted into the National Service for two years as part of the country's compulsory conscription system.

"There's no running away from it," Lu said. "It's something that you come to accept as part of your life."

South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, Israel and Singapore are among the countries that have some form of a compulsory-service requirement.

Students from such countries often "have to make choices between serving their country or pursuing their academic goals, and both are noble choices," Altamirano said.

College junior William Chang grew up in Taiwan but is a U.S. citizen. He said that if he were a Taiwanese citizen, he probably would have tried to escape serving in the military.

"I think that if you are educated and know English, you can help society better by going to college and getting a good job, rather than wasting time in the military," Chang said.

Although Poh didn't have a choice about whether to serve, he too felt the effects of this trade-off.

"The main problem with conscription is that we have to go away from our studies for two years. It's nearly impossible to undergo studies" while serving active duty, he said. "A common complaint is that because of the two year delay, we're two years behind female students. The first two to three months in college are generally for us to catch up" with them.

Despite the interruption in their academic careers, both Poh and Lu agree that their two years of military service helped them to become more mature.

"It forces you to grow up and helps you to see the bigger picture in society," said Lu, who became an officer in charge of a company when he was 19. In the military, "you work with people from different walks of life."

While some students who served say they would have been much happier studying at Penn than going through boot camp, they understand how necessary mandatory service is.

"For Taiwan, it's the right thing to do," Chang said. "The military threat of China is always there."

While Lu agrees that conscription is necessary, he said the experience was not a pleasant one.

"You're forced to stay at one place for two years when you don't want to," he said. "The moment you go in, you start counting the time until you're done. I compare it to chopping a really big tree a little bit every day. At the end, it falls down and you're free."

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