About 50 University of North Georgia (UNG) cadets will commission as second lieutenants in the Army, Georgia Army National Guard and Army Reserve in a ceremony set for 10 a.m. May 2 in the Convocation Center at UNG's Dahlonega Campus. Another six Corps of Cadets members will be honored for graduating on the National Service Leadership Track.  

Zoe Kinzie, a native of Alva, Oklahoma, is earning a degree in criminal justice with a forensics concentration, and she will become an officer in the Explosive Ordnance Disposal branch. Kinzie served as Bravo Company commander for 2023-24. She pointed to the quality of the training and the grueling nature of field training exercises as pivotal to her development while at UNG.  

"It's great getting to work side by side with these amazing and motivated cadets every day," Kinzie said.  

Kinzie, a four-year Army ROTC Scholarship recipient, came to UNG expecting to enter the Aviation branch before deciding on Explosive Ordnance Disposal. The senior also recently won the Paul Hutcherson Outstanding Student Award and was a Women of UNG leadership honoree. She said the guidance she received along the way was invaluable. She encourages other cadets to seek out mentors. 

"Talk with everybody and network with everyone. There are so many amazing alumni and resources that the school has. If you take advantage of them and really get to learn from everybody, then you can leave here with such a wealth of knowledge and such great connections that you take into the Army and into life," Kinzie said. "There are people everywhere from UNG, and they are more than happy to create more knowledgeable alumni who want to become mentors to others." 

Hyunbean Park, a Suwanee, Georgia, resident who is earning a degree in international affairs with a European concentration and a minor in Russian, will branch into the Chemical Corps on a path to eventually joining the Military Intelligence branch. He has been able to practice his language skills through studies in Poland, Romania, Latvia, and the republic of Georgia. He will study in Kyrgyzstan this summer as a Critical Language Scholarship recipient.

"Just like the Army's motto, 'Be all you can be,' cadets coming here can also be all they can be if they give themselves 100%," Park said. "They have the support from the military and also the academic side." 

Maddox Rose, a Ringgold, Georgia, native who is earning a degree in political science with a pre-law concentration, served as brigade executive officer for 2023-24. He has received a prestigious education delay from the Army to attend law school at the University of Georgia in preparation to one day join the Judge Advocate General's Corps.  

"The Department of Political Science has prepared me in ways I couldn't have imagined. A lot of the classes, particularly the ones taught by Dr. Scott Meachum, were structured in ways very similar to how law school is going to look and were very challenging. That was the most important thing I could have done," Rose said. "As far as the school itself and especially the Corps of Cadets, it's prepared me to lead in ways that I couldn't have achieved anywhere else because of how hands-on it was and how many times I was thrown into the fire and forced to learn on the job."