When students got their admission notification from UF on Feb. 8, 150 of them got an unexpected message.
UF’s College of Engineering admitted its inaugural class to the Gator Engineering at Santa Fe College program.
The program, with representatives who hope to have 50 students accept their invitation, is the first of its kind, said Angela Lindner, UF’s College of Engineering associate dean for student affairs.
For the first three semesters of their college career, students will spend their time taking classes at SFC. After their first semester, as long as certain tracking and GPA requirements are met, students will be considered UF students. After the first three semesters, students will be on UF’s campus full time.
“This is a program that will allow the college to graduate more engineering students,” Lindner said. “Particularly majors that have capacity in the upper-division, as well as majors that have a demand in the workplace.”
Lindner said electrical engineering, computer science, computer engineering, and digital arts and sciences are the majors being offered through the program.
She hopes it will be able to offer more majors in the future and increase the amount of students who participate.
One of the biggest issues was the reactions of students once they saw the message, Lindner said.
“These students are highly admissible, very talented and very well rounded,” she said. “The students’ first response is that they were not accepted as freshmen, and we can understand that.”
Mary Vasilevsky, an environmental engineering freshman, said she can see why students would feel that way.
“At first, it seems like it could take a shot at your pride,” the 18-year-old said. “But after you think about it, it’s really an excellent opportunity.”
Vasilevsky said it’s a great opportunity for students to benefit from more individual attention and smaller class sizes.
Lindner said a goal of the program is to help with the overpopulation in the freshman- and sophomore-level classes, especially the core chemistry and physics classes.
“I’m excited for this unique freshmen class with their own unique identifier,” she said.
