Why Porter
“I did six years in the Army as a supply specialist, mostly moving parts and medical supplies. You learn fast that the box is the weakest part of the supply chain. I've opened crates of radio parts that looked like they'd been dropped off a roof, because they had. When I got out I wanted a degree that would let me fix something I'd actually seen go wrong.”
Dana grew up in Harlan Mills, Wesconsin, and is a sophomore in Packaging Technology, one of a small number of dedicated packaging programs in the country. She uses her GI Bill benefits; the Veteran Resource Center in Founders Union 110 handled her certification paperwork “faster than the Army ever handled anything.”
“Some of my labs are in Founders Hall. I like that the building still smells a little like oil. It feels like work.”
The hands-on part
Packaging students spend a lot of time trying to destroy things on purpose. This fall Dana is in PKG 220, Packaging Materials Science, which includes a weekly lab in the packaging testing lab donated by a regional manufacturer.
- Drop testing: boxes are dropped from set heights onto steel plates, on every edge, corner and face. “I'm not allowed to say ‘I told you so’ to the box. I say it anyway.”
- Compression and vibration: stacks are crushed and shaken to simulate a truck on a county road. Her lab group is testing a recycled-fiber insert for shipping glass jars.
- The co-op: she has accepted a spring 2027 co-op at Riverbend Packaging Solutions in Porter Falls, working on protective packaging for medical devices. “Full circle.”
She is also a member of the Packaging Society, which runs a student package design competition every spring.
A hard semester
“My first semester, I sat in a chemistry lecture with a hundred 18-year-olds and felt about forty. I was used to people telling me exactly what to do and when. College tells you what's due in eleven weeks and then just trusts you. I didn't trust me.
“What helped was other vets. The Student Veterans Organization meets Thursdays in the resource center, and there's always coffee and somebody who's further along. One guy in mechanical engineering showed me how he plans a semester like a deployment calendar, working backward from the final. I passed chemistry with a B. He still checks in.”
She also had to learn to ask for help with sleep and noise. “Counseling Services has a counselor who works with veterans. I went. It helped. I tell people that because nobody told me.”
What she brings to class
Dana's instructors say her field experience shows up in every lab. When her PKG 220 group designed a shipping test for glass jars, she pushed them to add a test for a forklift tine strike, “because that's what actually happens on a dock at 2 a.m.”
| In the Army | At Porter |
|---|---|
| Signed for crates that arrived crushed | Learning to calculate the stacking strength that would have prevented it |
| Repacked medical supplies by hand in the field | Testing which cushioning materials hold up after repeated shocks |
| Wrote damage reports nobody read | Writes lab reports a professor reads line by line |
“The younger students know more chemistry than I do. I know more about what happens to a pallet in the rain. We trade.”
She is also one of the reasons the Student Veterans Organization started a Sunday study table in Halvorsen Library this fall. “A lot of vets study alone because that's how we're wired. The table is quiet. Nobody has to talk. But there's coffee and you're not by yourself.”
Outside class and what’s next
Dana lives off campus in Cedar Bluff with a roommate and a retired greyhound. She will carry the flag for the student veterans at the Veterans Day ceremony on November 11, and she volunteers with the Millrace Week parade committee, which this year means building a float “that has to survive a 1.2-mile route. I will be testing it.”
After graduation she wants to work in protective and medical packaging. “If you're getting out and thinking about school: go to the veterans office first, not the website. Bring your DD-214. Bring patience. Then come find us on Thursdays.”
Fictional information
UW–Porter Falls is a work of parody. Dana Kowalewski is an invented student: there is no such person, and every quotation, class, grade, job, hometown and anecdote in this profile is fictional. Her military service, Harlan Mills, Wesconsin, and the greyhound are invented, Riverbend Packaging Solutions is an invented employer, and nothing here is guidance on veteran benefits.