It’s classified.
After seven years as a Chinese linguist, rising to the rank of USAF Staff Sergeant, Jay O’Neill ’26 could be described as both a typical and atypical junior electrical engineering and East Asian studies concentrator at Brown. Today he blends in with other students walking through the Engineering Research Center, attending lectures and office hours, or in research labs. But upon closer look, he’s a little older than the other students, and his posture a little straighter. Much of what he did during his time serving in the United States Air Force is covered by the blanket statement: “I can say that I did use my language skills in my everyday career.” You can rephrase the question, and he’ll repeat that answer.
He is one of an active group of resumed undergraduate students and veterans who have come to Brown University already with the life experience of having served in the military. He came to College Hill specifically to study electrical engineering, and to continue honing the language skills he had built upon in the last decade.
O’Neill’s parents came to Miami from the Dominican Republic to raise a family, and the bilingual (Spanish and English) household put a strong emphasis on education. Jay, however, found himself nearing the end of high school without a future plan in place. “I talked to an Army recruiter,” he said. “And the day I was planning to sign the papers, my mom broke down crying. So that didn't end up happening.”
O’Neill entered and completed his studies at a local community college where he met a West Point graduate who suggested that maybe he should consider the Air Force. If that sounds odd, O’Neill is quick to point out that the best military mentors look at an individual and think in terms of which armed forces branch is best for them. “At that point, I already knew I wanted to do engineering. I've been interested in tinkering with electrical things since I was young, but I really didn't know how I could apply my interest in a productive manner,” he said.
Still feeling a bit aimless, he approached an Air Force recruiter who noticed O’Neill had completed one semester of Chinese. The recruiter indicated the high demand for linguists, and how the pay scale increased with those interested in committing to the six-year contract.
“They didn’t need to say any more to me,” O’Neill laughs. He enlisted as Airman First Class, and after completing basic training, headed straight to language school. “I was becoming a Chinese linguist,” he said. “I was at the bottom of my class. Those who ranked below me didn't even make it to the end of the class. I somehow managed to make it to the end, and passed the test. After that initial passing, we still had to take the test every year. And I managed to pass two years in a row when some of the other students who were ahead of me didn't. I just kept putting in the work,” he said.
The high level overview of work for a linguist in military service is translating and interpreting foreign languages to support military operations and intelligence activities. A linguist might also provide cultural guidance while working with embassies, attachés, or political figures.
“I just kept on studying Chinese,” he said, “In fact, I’m still studying my language skills even now. I've taken up to Chinese 0800 (Brown’s highest level language proficiency course) here.”
Getting here, however, was an interesting choice for the veteran who had spent time in California, Hawaii and Texas during his military career. After extending his time in the Air Force for one year past the initial enlisting, O’Neill began attending virtual college fairs through the Service to School non-profit. One of his primary questions to each school was, “Can I study engineering and either international relations, or Asian studies, or really anything like that where I could maintain my old skills, while getting the new?” Brown was one of only three schools O’Neill spoke with that immediately responded yes and showed him a feasible way to do so.
Brown’s veteran community, centered by the Office of Military Affiliated Students, is a large part of why O’Neill is thankful for that initial interaction and the follow up that brought him here. “The veteran community here, just by necessity, is going to be tight knit,” he said. “As older students, when we face things that distinctly arise from our military service, like having to deal with the VA (U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs), it's easy to get advice from other veterans who've traversed the same terrain. I'm really thankful for (Program Director) Mac (Manning) and (Program Coordinator) Becky (Scheusner), because they're really great at solving any of the big problems that any of us have.
But when it comes to things like trying to figure out who’s the best professor to take or, what exactly should I be looking for when I want to study this, that’s when the other students come into play,” he said.
O’Neill has not shied away from inserting himself into the more typical undergraduate activities. When he applied for, and was awarded, a summer Undergraduate Teaching and Research Award in Bob Hurt’s chemical engineering lab to work with graphene, his excitement was palpable. “I had never worked in a lab before, but it was something that I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve had smaller labs in my courses here, of course, but to work in a lab was a novel concept for me. I knew graphene was this weird substance that had all these sorts of interesting electrical properties, and it turned out to be such a great summer.” O’Neill presented his work exploring graphene oxide-based films as molecular hosts for controlled release applications at the university’s 2024 Summer Research Symposium.
He is also considering staying for a fifth year master’s degree in materials engineering, after taking ENGN 0410 with Professors David Paine and Lucas Caretta. “That class was insanely difficult, but also one of the most fun classes I’ve taken here thus far,” he said, underscoring how important he feels it is to be well-rounded in his studies even as he’s not sure where it will take him in the end.
O’Neill was asked to deliver the Student Speaker portion at Brown's annual Veterans Day Ceremony this year, but a last-minute family commitment prevented his attendance. The message he wanted to share seems fitting for the trajectory his life path has taken this far: “It was really a ‘bloom where you’re planted’ theme,” he said. “That perseverance is a state of mind.”