Ready to serve: Grad Molly Cochran prepares for duty in Army Nurse Corps
KALAMAZOO, Mich.—She crossed an ocean to come to Western Michigan University four years ago, and now Molly Cochran is ready to cross the commencement stage and chart a new adventure as a medical surgical nurse in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps.
“I am a completely different person than I was when I first came to Western,” says Cochran, who graduates Saturday, May 2, with a bachelor’s degree in nursing.
“I have grown in both my confidence and my independence. I learned how to build a life for myself and create a community, and I learned that I’m more capable than I think.”
The degree puts her closer to fulfilling her childhood dream of becoming a nurse.
“I’ve always liked helping people and getting to know people’s stories,” says Cochran. “I just like to make people feel better.”
Finding belonging
Cochran, who grew up on a military base in Vilseck, Germany, knew she wanted to come to the United States for college. She had extended family in Michigan and started thinking about applying to WMU as a high school student attending Western’s summer music program.
“Everyone was so kind and accommodating to my living overseas, and the positive experience really stuck with me,” she says.
Connecting with WMU’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program during a campus visit and earning the Medallion Scholarship—the University’s most prestigious merit-based scholarship for first-year students that covers tuition and fees as well as on-campus housing costs—sealed the deal. Still, she was nervous to move thousands of miles from the life she knew.
“It was harder than I gave myself permission to acknowledge,” Cochran says. “But I knew I was setting myself up for a better life coming here and getting my degree.”
She leaned into campus resources and her new Bronco community.
“Western does a really good job of creating communities and putting them in the spotlight through things like Bronco Bash and promoting different registered student organizations and ways to get involved,” Cochran says. “If I didn’t have the people I met around me, it would have been a reason for me not to stay. But because I had a community built around me, it gave me a second home.”
Having a built-in support system in the WMU ROTC also made a big impact. Cochran was able to come to campus early for a summer leadership camp and then continue to forge relationships through courses with her cohort that covered topics from leadership and communications to tactical strategy.
“ROTC has really taught me resilience and how to work with different people,” says Cochran, who received a national ROTC scholarship and will be commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army after graduation. “I’ve made so many good friends in ROTC that I might never have met otherwise, but we all have this in common together. It’s really expanded my worldview.”
Getting career-ready
Western’s pre-licensure nursing program in the Bronson School of Nursing sets students up for success by providing a rigorous academic environment paired with real-world practice.
“In my clinicals at Bronson Methodist Hospital, I got to have hands-on experience caring for the people of Kalamazoo,” Cochran says. “I got to experience every facet of nursing there, from the operating room to the ICU.”
The program is also nationally recognized for its holistic curriculum, endorsed by the American Holistic Nurses Credentialing Corporation, which emphasizes wellness-focused, person-centered and culturally sensitive care.
“It made me a better, more well-rounded nursing student,” says Cochran.
The experience confirmed her commitment to nursing and laid a foundation for her future career. At the Army’s Nurse Summer Training Program at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Cochran built on that foundation and took her skills to the next level.
“It skyrocketed my capabilities as a nurse and was one of the coolest things I’ve gotten to do as a nursing student,” she says. “I got to work in the hospital there and experience all of the different floors: labor and delivery, emergency and also med-surg, which is where all the nurses in the military start out. So I got to see what my next two years will be like.”
Now, as she graduates, she’s ready to take her nursing exam and see that vision come to life.
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