{"id":41687,"date":"2025-10-31T11:25:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T15:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/?p=41687"},"modified":"2025-11-06T15:45:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T20:45:15","slug":"for-first-generation-uf-student-ivanna-milian-the-only-option-is-to-succeed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/mae\/for-first-generation-uf-student-ivanna-milian-the-only-option-is-to-succeed\/","title":{"rendered":"For first-generation UF student Ivanna Milian, \u2018the only option is to succeed\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Ivanna Milian\u2019s family nurtured her path as a first-generation college student from her first days in elementary school. As they drove to school each morning, her father peppered her with positive affirmations.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI didn\u2019t really like them, but I think the encouragement as I was growing up really helped me get more confidence,\u201d she said, noting her father\u2019s favorite affirmation was from President Harry S. Truman: \u201cNot all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Those supportive vibes eventually led her to the University of Florida, where she studies <a href=\"https:\/\/mae.ufl.edu\/mechanical-engineering\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">mechanical engineering<\/a> and celebrates the family that set the path.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Milian\u2019s Colombian mother, Maria Teresa, and Cuban father, Rey, have three daughters. Neither parent attended college.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And make no mistake, this family is proud.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.ufl.edu\/2025\/11\/first-generation-uf-student-ivanna-milian\/\">Read full story on UF news<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ivanna Milian\u2019s family nurtured her path as a first-generation college student from her first days in elementary school. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":41693,"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":[23,25,57,67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mae","category-engineering-education","category-stories","category-student-spotlight"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41687","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\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41687"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41759,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41687\/revisions\/41759"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}