When Mollie Patterson ’10 began her freshman year, she knew something was amiss. She had researched and visited several colleges and universities, ultimately choosing a school with DII athletics. However, she felt her time on the soccer field was overshadowing her time in the classroom. Thinking about her options, Patterson remembered her visit to Hiram College and her overnight stay with members of the women’s soccer team. “Transferring to Hiram turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made,” says Patterson.

After coming to Hiram in the middle of her first year of college, Patterson was delighted to find a school where she could continue to earn her degree in history while also playing soccer. She also quickly learned that Hiram’s faculty and staff were committed to her success. “The professors care about their students as actual people, not just faces in a class,” says Patterson. “They’d ask how my family was doing or how soccer was going. They cared about ‘Mollie the student’ and ‘Mollie the person.’”

Patterson had originally intended to pursue teaching with a degree in history, but after joining the College’s Garfield Scholars—a program which offers leadership opportunities and studies in public policy—she reconsidered her career path. She attended the University of Baltimore School of Law to earn her JD, and today Patterson runs her own law firm, specializing in family, criminal, and dependency cases. She works with Child and Youth Services to represent children as guardian ad litem, a part of her job which she attributes to the “compassion, grit, and determination I was able to develop during my time at Hiram.” Outside of the courtroom, Patterson serves as the assistant secretary for the Beaver County Bar Association in Pennsylvania and the Zone 10 co-chair of the Pennsylvania Bar Association Young Lawyers Division.