This story is reprinted from UW–Madison News.
Brandon Kreger had a different major in mind when he visited campus the summer before his freshman year for SOAR, UW–Madison’s student orientation program. During that visit, and for reasons he can’t explain, Brandon decided to drop by the School of Nursing. It immediately felt like home — and prompted him to change his academic and career plan. “I don’t know what it was. I felt like I was being pulled” toward the school, he says. “They said ‘nursing,’ and I had this feeling I had to go there.” His encounters with health care had started earlier: In 2021, Brandon was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when he was 16 years old. “It was a shocker to me. You take a lot for granted when things work normally in your life, and when you hit a rough patch, you kind of reassess and think about what’s important to you. I thought back to that during SOAR and the impact that nurses have had on my life,” he says.
Brandon went on to excel in his studies and will graduate in May 2026 with honors. He was named a student nursing ambassador, helping with engagement activities for alumni, prospective students and friends of the school, and was selected by his fellow students to speak at the 2026 spring School of Nursing commencement ceremony. Post-graduation, the Stoughton, Wisconsin, native will stick with UW, working in the vascular and cardiac surgery unit at UW Hospital. “I’ve made a lot of good memories on campus,” he says. “It’s just a really great place to be.”