![Colby Ross, Saint of Santa Fe College for July 8, 2019](https://news.sfcollege.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/070819-Colby-Ross.jpg)
I was born and raised in Ocala and before going into the service. I didn’t take academics seriously at all. I was a knucklehead, didn’t get the best of grades and was getting into trouble. Then, obviously, the military changed everything. Now I’m here at Santa Fe College.
When I came here I started working at the VMSS office immediately. Sandra was a great mentor in getting everything on track for me. I love going through classes and getting to know new people, getting to know professors and people that have been through this before me. I didn’t believe that I’d be even remotely smart enough pursue a degree let alone a degree in Aerospace Engineering.
Getting out (of the military) I kind of got it in my head that I wouldn’t be able to function in the civilian world. I’d have a different mentality, different attitude, different view of life and I wouldn’t be around any like-minded individuals if I came back to school. SF and the family here have impacted my decision to come to school greatly because I found that I can still get along with normal civilians.
I look at where I see myself at retirement and I back plan from there. I want to be sitting on a yacht down in the Florida Keys smoking a cigar reeling in a tuna just like Ernest Hemingway.
Colby Ross, A.A. Engineering
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