{"id":36207,"date":"2025-01-30T16:54:34","date_gmt":"2025-01-30T21:54:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/newengineer\/?p=36207"},"modified":"2025-12-16T15:03:50","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T20:03:50","slug":"ufs-first-art-and-mechanical-engineering-major-combines-creativity-with-stem-skills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/magazine\/2025issue\/student-successes\/ufs-first-art-and-mechanical-engineering-major-combines-creativity-with-stem-skills\/","title":{"rendered":"UF\u2019s first art and mechanical engineering major combines creativity with STEM skills"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Captivated by cubism, color, construction, and deconstruction, Rokheyatou \u201cRoxie\u201d Faye is the first Gator to double major in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/catalog.ufl.edu\/UGRD\/colleges-schools\/UGART\/VAS_BA\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">art<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/catalog.ufl.edu\/UGRD\/colleges-schools\/UGENG\/MCE_BSME\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">mechanical engineering<\/a>&nbsp;at the University of Florida.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Her creative and technical focus epitomizes how UF students are diversifying their academic pursuits to get a leg up in the competitive job market. At a university that encourages cross-disciplinary academics, this pathway also helps students approach scientific challenges with creative perspectives, leading them to find innovative, real-world solutions.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI was always taking things apart and putting them back together [when I was younger],\u201d said Faye, a third-year student, who started out at UF as an engineering student. \u201cI liked playing with LEGOs and deconstructing my Barbies, making a mess. I thought it was fascinating. It made my parents upset, but I found it interesting how you could make and manipulate things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But it wasn\u2019t until Faye\u2019s sophomore year in college that she brought the creativity component into her studies. During a study abroad summer program in France, while in the cathedral-laden Lille, she admired the art on the ancient museum walls and set a new career course for herself \u2013 adding art as a second major.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.ufl.edu\/2025\/01\/roxie-faye\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Read full story at news.ufl.edu<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Captivated by cubism, color, construction, and deconstruction, Rokheyatou \u201cRoxie\u201d Faye is the first Gator to double major in\u00a0art\u00a0and\u00a0mechanical engineering\u00a0at the University of Florida.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2592,"featured_media":36209,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"single-templates\/single-sidebar-none.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"featured_post":"off","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[433,55,57,445],"tags":[509],"class_list":["post-36207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2025issue","category-magazine","category-stories","category-student-successes","tag-topstories2025"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2592"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36207"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37313,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36207\/revisions\/37313"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}