ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 The University of Central Florida is seeing a growing Hispanic student community that now includes more than 22,700 students as of this fall.<\/p>\n
UCF senior Sofia Lisman, an integrated business major and deputy chief of staff for UCF Student Government, is among them.<\/p>\n
In her role, Lisman oversees the division of student affairs and helps plan events for thousands of fellow Knights.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love seeing what other people are passionate about and helping them achieve their goals,\u201d Lisman said.<\/p>\n
Lisman credits her parents for her ambition.<\/p>\n
\u201cGrowing up in that Hispanic household, our values are always persecuting and pursuing what we want, going for our dreams, and really fulfilling that American dream,\u201d Lisman said.<\/p>\n
Lisman’s parents are originally from Venezuela. She is the first in her family to attend college.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though they didn’t necessarily take this path because they were moving from a different country to here, they have always been supportive and helped me find my own resources,\u201d Lisman said.<\/p>\n
She says it\u2019s not only her family supporting her on her path to graduate, but her university as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo anyone who is coming into college and is nervous about not finding that group that reminds you a little of home I truly believe that anywhere you go, you will be able to find a community,\u201d Lisman says.<\/p>\n
Getting Hispanic students into college isn\u2019t the biggest hurdle, says policy analyst Magin Sanchez. Finishing it is.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the issue of immigration enforcement, is these students may get in, but it’s remaining in school that is different,\u201d Sanchez said.<\/p>\n
Latinos make up about one in five college students nationwide, and slightly more in Florida.<\/p>\n
Sofia Lisman is part of that community. She found a community that reminds her of home at UCF. Now, she’s making sure others find theirs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 The University of Central Florida is seeing a growing Hispanic student community that now includes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":436303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[8905,115,1335,139,141,140,835],"class_list":["post-436302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-camille-acevedo","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}