She was captain of her high school basketball team and vice president of the senior class, made the dean’s list every semester at Fairfield, been inducted into the Sigma Theta Tau nursing honor society, and volunteers as a New Student Leader, but senior Maeve Devlin’s most exciting accomplishment just may be the one she mastered in June 2022: being accepted into the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps.

It was a process that took over a year and involved three interviews, five letters of recommendation, a sheaf of paperwork, and a list of 10 people to be called for reference. It also took two recruiters and a letter from her doctor to overrule an initial rejection due to a prior hip surgery.

Among the many things the Navy looks for are leadership skills, and it’s clear that Devlin – who is the type to raise her hand and volunteer to get things done – has what it takes. The Corps accepts fewer than 50 nurse candidates annually for the coveted positions.

After passing her NCLEX exam this summer, Devlin will spend five weeks in Officer Development School. At its conclusion, she’ll officially be an Officer and Navy Nurse, with both military and nursing duties and authority over a group of enlisted personnel. For the next two years, she’ll be posted in Virginia; after that, she’s hoping to be stationed in a hospital abroad where she’ll be treating Navy personnel, their families, and others in need. All in all, she has committed to the Navy for four years of active duty, plus four years in the Naval Reserves.

The travel bug bit Devlin years ago, but the desire to go abroad was reinforced with her trip to Ireland during her junior year. “Getting to see a hospital in a different part of the world was so interesting. There, everything was on paper. The meds were set up differently. And the nursing school has classes for six weeks, then clinicals for six weeks. And they were paid!” Perhaps best of all? “There’s no equivalent to a NCLEX exam.”

A native of Medfield, Mass., Devlin followed her brother Travers ’21 to Fairfield. At the time, “I was thinking about nursing but wasn’t sure, but when I visited I thought it was an amazing community,” she recalls. Another plus for Fairfield was the opportunity to study abroad in Ireland. “A lot of nursing programs don’t allow for study abroad, and I knew I wanted to go overseas,” says Devlin. 

Now that she’s officially part of the Navy Nurse Candidate Program, Devlin has received a sign-on bonus and gets a monthly stipend, part of which she’s put toward her school loans. Once in Virginia, she’ll get a housing allowance and live off base. Her patient ratio will be less than it would be in a community hospital, and she’ll have the opportunity to be a charge nurse sooner than she would in civilian life. At this point, she’s considering a focus on either maternity or critical care nursing. 

“One of the big reasons I joined the Navy is that its core values are similar to those of nursing and of Fairfield – that is, the idea of service. Fairfield has instilled this idea throughout college, and I’m really proud to be the Navy’s Stag representative!”