Graduation season has returned, and many college seniors are preparing to walk the stage with more than just academic success to celebrate. These are some of the inspiring stories from students across the state.
Legal prodigy: Florida International University
Karina Keifitz will be attending law school before she can vote. At just 16, she’s the youngest person graduating from Florida International University this spring.
Keifitz, a criminal justice senior at FIU, has been ahead of her class for years, earning her high school diploma and associate’s degree at the same time. She said she had always wanted to skip a grade, even asking the front office herself to do so when she was in middle school. But it was only until ninth grade when that became possible. She was home-schooled and spent her full schedule as a dually enrolled student at Broward College
“Everyone says, ‘You're missing out on [a] high school experience. You're missing out on experiences of your age.’ But genuinely, I don't feel like that,” Keifitz said. “I think this is exactly what I want to be doing. I don't want to be sitting in school all day just to have to do this in five years. So I'm glad I get to do it now.”
One of the biggest challenges for Keifitz, who lived at home while studying at FIU, was not being able to drive herself to class before she got her license. Aside from that, Keifitz said her age didn’t prevent her from being involved and making friends on campus.
She will be attending FIU’s law school in the fall where she said she’s interested in pursuing criminal and real estate law: “I'm not really committing to anything now. It's also hard to commit at 16 what exactly you want to do for the rest of your life.”
‘Living in a world not built for me’: University of North Florida
Most college students can’t say they’ve achieved one of their lifelong goals in their 20s. Morgan Ray, 22, didn’t just compete in the Paris Paralympics like he always dreamed. He won silver.
Ray, who is a health administration senior at the University of North Florida, has achondroplasia, the most common form of dwarfism. The paralympian started competitively swimming when he was 6 years told and made his first national team as a freshman in high school. He said he loves swimming because of the work he can put into it as an individual but also because it’s one of the few sports that’s gentle on the back and joints, which he said people with dwarfism sometimes face issues with.
His diagnosis was also a contributor in his choice to study health administration in college: “I've been around doctors for most of my life, especially when I was way younger,” he said. “So I've always just had that interest in helping people.”
After graduation, Ray will continue training, hoping to compete in the next Paralympics, held in Los Angeles in 2028.
Above water, he has had an internship in the pediatric and adaptive sports and recreation program at Brooks Rehabilitation, a nonprofit that specializes in physical rehabilitation and runs three hospitals. He is mentoring children with physical and cognitive disabilities. Ray advocates for people with disabilities and has embraced a motto of “living in a world not built for me,” he said.
He has three brothers, including one who also has achondroplasia.
“We just always focus on putting our best foot forward,” Ray said, referring to him and his brother. “Just to show the world that we are active members of society, and we can have jobs, we can succeed in careers and we can even go to the Paralympic games on the biggest stage of the world and be seen.”
Paving the way: University of Florida
Britney Deas, 27, is leaving the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law as the first Black woman to be chief justice of the school’s supreme court, which functions as a check on the power of the university’s student government. She’s also graduating as a trailblazer within her own family – she will be its first lawyer.
Deas was born in Miami. She said she was raised there by a single mother who drove a rundown car that didn’t have working air conditioning just to save money for her daughter’s education.
“I just saw how much she sacrificed for me,” Deas said, “and it made me want to make her proud.”
Deas earned her bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of South Florida where she was the university’s first Black female student body president. Prior to her presidency, it had been over 20 years since another woman held the role.
She has attended UF as an Ethos of Excellence scholar, the highest honor for the school’s law students that came with a full-ride scholarship and stipends. Deas, who is Haitian, also received a number of awards during her time in school, including the Rising Star Award from the CLE Haitian Sisterhood. She’s also interned at a law firm in Tampa and for a federal judge in the Middle District of Florida.
But Deas, who is interested in practicing either commercial litigation, real property litigation or land use law in Florida, said one of the highlights of her college career was serving as the president of the Caribbean Law Students Association, which connected her with people of her heritage.
“That organization was really like a home away from home for me,” she said, “and I fell in love with it.”
Pickleball pioneer: Florida Gulf Coast University
When Miranda Cabieses first enrolled at Florida Gulf Coast University, her life looked a lot different than it had just a few years prior. Despite being a star athlete as a child, she wasn’t playing tennis anymore. And the student who grew up in Peru had been living in the U.S., learning to speak English for the first time.
Possibly the biggest difference for Cabieses, 20, was she hadn’t been introduced yet to pickleball – the sport she would soon be recognized for internationally.
Now Cabieses, a management senior at FGCU, is one of 37 people in the world that the International Pickleball Federation named a global diplomat of the sport. She’s only been playing since 2021, but with the help of her brother, she has multiple wins under her belt, she created an international pickleball tournament that 33 countries participated in and she also started a foundation to introduce young people and para-athletes to the sport.
Cabieses knows firsthand how inclusive pickleball is, having started after coming off an injury that made her quit tennis as a child.
“The beauty of the sport is that everybody can play,” she said.
After graduating, Cabieses and her brother will be hosting another international tournament in Fort Lauderdale. On top of her work, Cabieses has also managed a full course load and has even competed in and won several beauty pageants, like Miss Teen Model Universe.
But she said her future is definitely in pickleball: “I think my life changed so much for good. I'm just happy, free and thankful.”
‘I wanted to just go for it’: University of West Florida
When she was a teenager, Hannah Roscom dropped out of high school and worked full-time to support her and her mom, who would make frequent trips to the hospital to treat a chronic illness. So, it was a big deal for Roscom to be accepted into the University of West Florida years later, let alone graduate now as a top student.
At UWF, Roscom, a 28-year-old biochemistry and biomedical sciences senior, has participated in a STEM peer mentoring program and received tuition assistance from the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. Roscom is a first-generation Native American.
She was also accepted into the National Institutes of Health Maximizing Access to Research Careers program. Roscom said the program helps underrepresented and minority students participate in research to become better candidates for graduate school.
When Roscom received the scholarship as a junior in college, it was the first time in nearly a decade she didn’t have to work anymore. Before then, she was a barista, managed a chain retail store and even streamed on Twitch to make money.
“It was exciting to be able to devote a lot of my time towards research in school, because that was what I wanted to focus on after learning that I could actually have a career in science,” she said. “I wanted to just go for it.”
She will be attending the University of Alabama at Birmingham in the fall to work toward a Ph.D. In the future, she hopes to continue doing research in an industry role.
“I just always feel like I've had this hunger for knowledge that I wasn't able to foster until I was an adult,” she said. “Science feels like a big puzzle, right? With every research question that you're answering, it's like solving a Rubik's cube.”
His familia: Florida Polytechnic University
Raul Lopez III, 20, stayed busy with his schoolwork as a computer science student at Florida Polytechnic University. He also held an exhausting number of leadership roles, including presidential ambassador, resident assistant, teacher’s assistant and research assistant. Then he added “co-founder” to the list, helping four new organizations come to fruition.
One of his favorite organizations, his “baby,” is Florida Polytechnic’s chapter of Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers. Lopez III, who serves as president, said one of the most rewarding parts about creating the chapter is being able to see it grow and exist for Hispanic students on campus.
“That's one of the biggest things that make me proud,” he said, “because [the organization’s] whole purpose is to bring together that sense of familia and community, and then not just be there for each other, but to push us forward together as a whole.”
Lopez III also co-founded the pickleball club, a club dedicated to K-Pop and a league on campus for students to play the video game, Overwatch.
Competing against other computer science majors hasn’t been easy, Lopez III said. But the senior accepted a job offer at Bank of America in Manhattan, where he spent last summer as a full stack software engineer.
He will speak at Florida Polytechnic’s university commencement ceremony, and plans to center his speech around a new album by his favorite artist, Tyler, the Creator.
“I saw it fitting to kind of borrow some of the themes and messages of that album to this graduation speech,” he said, “considering the album focuses on reaching adulthood and all of the challenges that that brings.”
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This story was produced by Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. The reporter can be reached at lauren.brensel@ufl.edu. You can donate to support our students here.