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Graduation 2006
No more homework, no more tests
Thousands of Tampa Bay area college students cross the stage and collect their hard-earned diplomas this weekend.
By EMILY NIPPS
Published May 7, 2006
TAMPA - James Parker, 24, hopes to take a few months off to "relieve some stress" after taking six years to complete his computer engineering degree. Finance major Krista D'Amico, 23, plans to attend graduate school before opening a tae kwon do school. Edna Jahaira Figueroa, 22, wants to teach special education somewhere close to her Riverview home. The three were among thousands in the Tampa Bay area who became college graduates Saturday. The largest numbers came from the University of South Florida's Tampa campus, though the University of Tampa set a school record with more than 800 grads. By the time this weekend is over, USF President Judy Genshaft will have shaken 2,500 hands at seven ceremonies for the spring Class of 2006. She got most out of the way on Saturday, when nearly 2,000 graduated in split ceremonies at the USF Sun Dome. After the afternoon ceremony, graduates posed for pictures or made beelines for their cars, eager to beat the traffic and get on with their lives. "Been there, done that," said 57-year-old Melvin McQuay, who spent the last five years working toward an electrical engineering degree, adding to the architecture degree he earned from the University of Florida more than two decades ago. "This was a lot of hard work, a lot of sleepless nights, lots of exams. I'm ready to earn some money, pay off some loans." Not 22-year-old DeWan Snelling. She once aspired to be an opera singer and majored in music performance, then realized her postcollege options would be "either perform or starve," she said. She became fascinated with speech and accents after learning about them in a diction class, and decided to switch career paths. "I'm going back to grad school and majoring in speech pathology," she said. In the interim, she was planning to spend time with her fiance and family, who were heading to Clearwater for dinner to celebrate the milestone. "We're going as far away as we can from here," she said, "so we can avoid the graduation crowd." Emily Nipps can be reached at 813 269-5313 or nipps@sptimes.com
[Last modified May 7, 2006, 09:21:49]
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