“I graduated high school in 2007 and while I liked school, I HATED math, so college wasn’t something I was looking into at all.
I started my journey at Santa Fe College in 2011 and enrolled in remedial math (MAT0022 Integrated Arithmetic.) I was terrified of math and since I wanted to be an engineer, I needed to build the confidence to get to those higher level math courses.
I basically lived at the Math Lab and would close that place out every day because they had tutors that could help me understand the material. They gave me the confidence to continue onto the higher math courses and eventually to my engineering coursework.
I was in the Florida Army National Guard the whole time I was in SF and whenever I had training I told my professors and they would always accommodate all assignments to fit into my schedule. When I had to drop a class because I got sent out for training, the registrar’s office helped me so that the ‘W’ did not appear on my Transcript. Examples like that are why I suggest everyone should attend smaller Community colleges for their A.A. SF really cares about your success.
I graduated with a B.S in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Central Florida in May 2020 and will be starting a Full-Time position with Lockheed Martin Aeronautics as a Manufacturing Engineer at their facility in Marietta GA supporting the F35 II Lighting program.”
- Alejandro Cabrera, Class of 2015