On Duty and Online

Extension Student Begins His Undergraduate Career While Serving in Iraq

by Leslie Busler

Joshua Miles’s first semester at Harvard Extension School was anything but typical. He watched video streams of his religious ethics class on a PC, his feet—outfitted in regulation combat boots—propped on a heavy concrete desk.

The desk was situated in a destroyed building with an unstable Internet connection at Camp Cooke, the military base in Taji, north of Baghdad. It was the fall of 2004, and Miles was a sergeant in the Texas Army Reserves stationed in Iraq. His coursework was often interrupted by immediate responsibilities—prepping for missions and troubleshooting communications—and occasionally by a nearby explosion.

Joshua Miles

Though Miles’s attention was primarily on the conflict around him and the safety of his troops, studying was a close second in priority. At 27, he had already put off college for almost a decade. It would have been understandable if he'd delayed a while longer—at least until his deployment ended. Recently, however, Miles had discovered a quality that he'd been missing during an initial attempt at college. "When I first went to school I was working full time," he says. "I was in the reserves. I was traveling an hour to campus. I kept asking myself, 'Where am I going with this?' When you're 20 years old and working a $6 an hour job, you're not really thinking big. At that point, I just wasn't interested."

Today, eight years later, Miles can barely contain his interest. Despite his other responsibilities, he successfully completed Comparative Religious Ethics last fall, then a government course at Harvard Summer School, and currently he’s enrolled in Justice and Colonial America. There have been a few life changes: Miles was honorably discharged from the military in February 2005 at the end of an eight-year contract (which included three years in the New York Army National Guard, three years active duty, and two in the Texas Army Reserves). He is now working on a yearlong US contract in Kuwait. Thus, for now his coursework continues to be online.

The idea of returning to college first surfaced in flight school, where Miles excelled as a pilot of helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. "I love flying, and I was doing quite well," he says. "My instructors told me I was a good pilot. I began to wonder what else I could strive to do."

Then, before completing his training, Miles was called to active duty in a region whose customs and history were complicated and unfamiliar to him. In Iraq, the native of Carmel, New York, came to appreciate how much a formal education could enhance his growing awareness. He wanted to learn more about the roots of the tension and cultural clashes that on a daily basis touched his life and those of the people around him. He wanted to study geography, politics, and international relations.

Although Miles was told by many that he didn't need school, his mind was set—not only on earning a degree but also on studying at an elite school. He managed to carve out time for Internet research on programs at schools like Cornell and Princeton. "People thought I was crazy," he says. Finally, he discovered the Extension School’s Bachelor of Liberal Arts Program and distance education courses.

The online experience proved to be convenient and stimulating. "It’s almost like you're sitting in the class," Miles says. "You've got the teacher giving the lectures; you can see everything that goes onto the blackboard. You even have questions and answers at the end of the lecture. So, even if you can't ask questions right at that point in time, you can e-mail the instructor or teaching assistant for clarification."

The flexibility also made a difference for Miles, who was sometimes unable to watch a lecture for a week because he was on a mission. On base, there were frequent interruptions. "At any time, the siren might go off. If there was an incoming, I had to drop what I was doing and make sure that the troops were in the bunkers, that everyone was accounted for." Then there was the unstable Internet connection. "We were always realigning the dish, changing out routers and hubs." Being able to view lectures two weeks down the line or replay videos if he missed anything allowed him to complete the course at his pace.

Amid a conflict whose complexities are mind bending, Miles wrote an analysis for class of the situation from the perspective of an American soldier. In the paper, he recalls an afternoon when he visited a market on the Taji post in search of books about Iraqi culture and history. When the language barrier began to prove frustrating for him and the shopkeeper, Miles found a translation book and attempted to communicate his request in Arabic—a gesture that inspired the shopkeeper to teach him to count to ten.

This is a memory that stays with Miles. From his current post 30 miles outside of Kuwait City, he enjoys walking the streets as a civilian. He is pleased with the direction his life is taking today. Because school didn't come easily for him earlier in life, he is eager to advocate for young people who might be struggling. "Kids need proof that what they're learning will be applicable to life," he says. "I mean, back then I didn't know I was going to need algebra," he says. "If you can find a way to prove to somebody that they're going to need certain knowledge later on in life, then I think they're going to do a lot better."

In the coming years, Miles plans to found an aviation corporation that would lease helicopters to flight schools and to commercial pilots who complete contract assignments in television, search and rescue, and tourism. He wants to establish a corporate scholarship fund and to provide guidance and support to students who are much like he was in school.

When his contract is up in the spring, Miles plans to move to Cambridge to continue the undergraduate program. "Now I have such a keen interest in so many areas, having traveled to different countries and all over the United States. I'm excited. I mean, the books I've gotten for my classes, I can't wait to read them. I can't wait."