This week, incoming freshman and sophomore women will go through the process of Greek recruitment to find their home for leadership, philanthropy and social activities throughout their college years. For communication junior Brianna Scherer, this week two years ago was part of a journey that led her to join the U.S. Marine Corps.
Scherer, a member of Kappa Delta, will graduate next year as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. Scherer said she began seriously considering becoming a Marine last year.
“I’ve always wanted to go into the military and then I really started looking into it the beginning of sophomore year because I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life and the Marines are the best of the best,” Scherer said. “My parents are both Army, so there’s lots of jokes, but they are really supportive — they’re the best people in the world.”
Similar to her experience in Kappa Delta, Scherer said her position as a commissioned officer in the Marines will require her to embody leadership and teamwork.
“Leadership is all about teamwork and making sure that you can accomplish goals while at the same time actively working on keeping the relationships going between everyone else without conflict,” Scherer said.
Scherer said she trains for the Marines during the summer.
“This past summer, I went to something called Officer Candidate School and that was six weeks up in Virginia at Quantico, a huge Marine base,” Scherer said. “I’ll do this for another summer before I graduate, and then upon commissioning, we have six months of training where we choose what we want to do.”
Scherer said her advice to other women who want to join the U.S. armed forces is to prepare themselves for the male dominated environment, but also to realize that the basic components of their job are the same regardless of gender.
“It was actually kind of cool — when I was at Officer Candidate School over the summer, I was in a platoon of all females and it was really interesting how the same things come into play in every organization,” Scherer said.
Scherer said she advocates for working hard to achieve whatever goals one has — something she said her sorority sisters are incredibly supportive of.
“Everything is organization at its base,” Scherer said. “It’s about drive and what you want to do in your life.”
